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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.

Since it’s the end of February, I’ve been trying to come up with an idea to replace the Valentine’s Day candy corn that have been in a decorative jar on our dining table. I couldn’t think of any green candies to go in it for March and St. Patrick’s Day, though.

Last week I was walking down the aisle at the grocery store and passed by the bags of dried beans. The bright green split peas caught my eye and I grabbed up three bags (about $1 each).

I use split peas pretty often for cooking and know that the bag always recommends that you wash the “field dust” off the peas before using them. I figured I’d rinse them off this time as well, even though I wasn’t cooking with them.

What I didn’t realize was that they get pretty clumpy when they’re left to sit after being wet, so my husband and I dumped out the colander onto a baking sheet lined with towels to let them air dry, then broke up any further clumps we found.

Overall it worked out really well, and makes a nice little decoration for St. Patrick’s Day!

I’ve slowly started changing over my modest collection of holiday decor from Valentine’s Day stuff to St. Patrick’s Day stuff. If I thought I had very little to pack away for V-Day, I’ve got even less to bring out for St. Patrick’s Day!

But it’s not a big deal. By the middle of the month I’m tired of it anyway and I’ll have Easter and spring stuff out soon enough, so hey, less work for me! That doesn’t mean I get tired of holiday-appropriate baking, though. It definitely takes me longer to get past that and move on to the next season. Read More