Rainbow Cake for St. Patrick’s Day
I’ve had a hell of a time trying to get this post together, since I made this cake yesterday while the girls were in school so it would be a surprise for today. But today I’m editing pictures and every time I pull the program up, one of them has something urgent to tell me or needs to walk by and see what I’m doing. It’s maddening.
Anyway, I made this as a St. Patrick’s Day surprise for the girls. We actually don’t do much for St. Patrick’s Day but I really wanted to play with food coloring, so yesterday I got to baking.
I was originally going to do Martha Stewart’s rainbow layer cake, but I lazied out at the last minute since I’ve only got two cake pans and I’d have to wash them between bakings. I just didn’t wanna.
So I went with the much easier tie-dye affect. I made a basic white cake batter from my Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, and separated it out into six bowls, and each bowl got its own color.
I wanted the colors to go in rainbow order once the cake was assembled, so I worked from the “bottom” up, pouring in all the purple first, then the blue on top of that, and the green on top of that. In the second pan I did yellow first, then the orange and then the red on top.
After they were out of the oven and cooled I decided to just go with white cream cheese frosting.
I thought about coloring it too, but I want the inside to be a surprise.
Fun free-form colored cake! I made a rainbow layer cake once, and it was so time-consuming. This way is much better!
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Heather
March 17th, 2012 at 11:22 am
This one was really fun to do, and I think I would have resented it if I’d done the layer cake! 😀
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This beautiful cake can lighten up anyone’s day…Thanks for sharing!
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Heather
March 21st, 2012 at 9:02 am
Thank you, myfudo! It was a lot of fun 😀
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I love it. I laughed at the animation of te lady shaking her head saying no. Too cute. But seriously I really do love the look of your rainbow cake and it definitely looks moist and delicious. Well done.
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Heather
March 21st, 2012 at 9:03 am
Thank you, Tia! That was exactly my reaction when I read that I’d need to wash and re-use the pans several times if I didn’t have six of them in my cupboard already — “uh, no” 😀
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This looks absolutely amazing! well done!!
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Heather
March 21st, 2012 at 9:04 am
Thank you, Jess! I really appreciate it!
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Yymmm rainbow cake.
ratedkb.blogspot.com
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Heather
March 28th, 2012 at 7:44 pm
Thank you, K&B!
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SO gorgeous! I want to try this one, too 🙂
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Heather
March 21st, 2012 at 2:29 pm
Thank you, Liz! It was a lot of fun!
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A friend of mine is doing this for her wedding cake! My only worry is that the food coloring could make the cake taste funny. Did you notice any change with all of the coloring used?
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Heather
April 2nd, 2012 at 1:36 pm
Hi Jessie! I didn’t notice any taste change from using the colorings. Do you know what brand she’s going to use? I really didn’t need to use much for mine, a little went a long way (I used these http://www.amazon.com/Ateco-1112-12-Color-Food-Coloring/dp/B00004S1C6/ ) and I think if you use just a few drops per color you should be fine.
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Did u need to add any ingredients so the colours didn’t mix and change colour? I saw a recipe that had sprite to stop the colours mixing!
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Heather
September 9th, 2012 at 6:31 pm
Hi Ipek! No, I didn’t do anything special — the colors held up well on their own 🙂
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OMG thank you so much for such a quick response! I followed a recipe online and the cake came our soooo moist and was unedible 🙁 I’m trying to make my sister this cake but as a 5tier cake for her 13th birthday… I brought liquid colouring but I’m guessing I’m going to need gel colours? And also do u have the recipe for this cake anywhere? Many many thanks!
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Heather
September 9th, 2012 at 6:49 pm
Here’s the recipe I used: http://www.bhg.com/recipe/cakes/white-cake/
Gel colors usually work better because they won’t water down the batter (or frosting) if you need to use a lot, and the color is usually more intense and will remain bright even after baking (liquid food coloring tends to turn a little brown and faded).
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This is great! However I tried this with the recipe you posted and the colours mixed (americolor gel colouring) and the cake was like play dough I had to throw it away…. What did I do wrong ? And also if I used gel colours in yellow batter would the colour change for example if I but blue would it turn green?
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