Rainbow Cake
As some of you know, I've been making rainbow cakes for the kids' birthdays ever since I discovered the concept online. This will be my fifth year making rainbow cakes for both kids (or, in one case, rainbow cupcakes), so I've got a lot of experience with it by now. It's kind of a lot of work, but always totally worth it. There's invariably at least one kid and/or adult at the party who hasn't seen rainbow cake before, and the ooh's and ahh's are pretty gratifying (yes, I do have an inner attention-whore). Plus, I personally love how cool it looks, as do my kids, of course. I enjoy baking anyway, so to me it's totally worth it to put in the extra effort.
In this post I give the complete instructions for making a rainbow cake, taking into account everything that I've learned from doing it so many times. I must give credit where it's due, and link to the webpage where I originally found the rainbow cake idea, but since I'm a writer I also felt the need to write it up in my own words. And, if you stick it out to the end, there are some pictures. :) Ruthie's rainbow cake came out particularly well this year!
So here's the basic procedure.
How To Make Rainbow Cake, by Joan.
What You Will Need:
* A white cake recipe and the ingredients to make it. (You can use boxed cake mix if that's how you roll.)(Here is a link to the recipe I use.)
* Pans to bake the cake in -- my instructions are written on the assumption that you'll be using two 9-inch round pans, but you can also use a 13x9 rectangular pan (I have done this once and it worked fine) or a muffin tin to make cupcakes (see note at the end about cupcakes).
* Betty Crocker brand gel food coloring. I get this in the cake-decorating section of my local supermarket. The gel food coloring gives much more vibrant colors than liquid, so it's essential.
* Six small bowls and six spoons for mixing the colors.
What You Will Do:
1. Prepare the pans. My recipe calls for greasing the pans, then lining their bottoms with parchment paper, greasing the paper, and dusting it with flour. That sounds like a lot of extra work, but it really helps make the cakes release nicely from the pans.
2. Start the oven preheating according to your recipe (probably 350). Mix the cake batter per your recipe.
3. Scoop all of your batter into a large measuring cup to determine how much you have, then do the math to divide that by 6, and scoop the resulting amount into each of your 6 bowls. For example, if your recipe makes 4 cups of batter, you would put 2/3 cup of batter into each bowl. Do not fret too much about getting the amounts precisely right. It really doesn't matter, as long as it's in the ballpark. Hint: If you'll be using this recipe again, write down somewhere the results of your math, so you won't have to do the measuring step again every time.
4. Use your gel food coloring to color each bowlful a different color. Be generous with the gel; you want your colors to be really vivid. You'll notice that you get four colors in the box -- red, blue, yellow, and green -- so you have to mix the orange and purple, which means that you'll use a lot more of the red than any other color. You'll also find that it's really hard to get the red batter to look red instead of pink. There isn't much you can do about this -- the main thing is to make sure that there's a definite, obvious contrast between the red and the orange. As long as you get a nice orangey orange, people will know that the red is red even if it looks pink.
5. Now for the fun / tricky part. Take your two pans and put the batter in as follows. We're going to scoop slightly more than half out of each bowl. In one pan, you're going to start with red, orange, yellow, and in the other pan you'll do purple, blue, green. Then finish off the first pan with the second half of the green, blue, purple, and finish the second pan with the remaining yellow, orange, red. Why do it this way? It helps ensure that the pans are balanced even though you aren't measuring precisely. If you scoop "what looks like a little more than half" from each bowl, and put half of those scoops in one pan and half in the other, it will work out. Maybe this doesn't sound like it makes sense, but it works. Trust me.
So, to be specific:
5a. Pick up the bowl with the red batter, and scoop out what looks like a little more than half of the bowl's contents. Plop it into your first pan and try to spread it out into a circle. Do not attempt to spread it all the way to the edges of the pan -- it isn't enough batter and it won't work. Just spread it into something approximating a circle in the middle of the pan.
5b. Pick up the bowl with the orange batter, and scoop out what looks like a little more than half of the bowl's contents. Plop it on top of the red batter and gently try to spread it out. Don't spread too eagerly because you don't want the colors to mix. You want the orange to sit on top of the red. But, and this is important, DO NOT FRET too much about getting it spread perfectly. It will look great regardless. Trust me.
5c. Now do the yellow. Scoop a little more than half of it on top of the orange and gently spread it.
5d. Now switch to the other pan. Scoop out a little more than half of the purple, plop it into the second pan, and spread it into a circle. Review what I said in 5a about how to spread it.
5e. Now do the blue and then green on top of the purple. Again: do not try to spread it too carefully and do not fret if it feels like you're just plopping the batter on top of itself. It is all going to work out.
5f. Now go back to the first pan and scoop out the remaining green on top of the yellow. Finish off the pan with the second half of the blue and purple. Then finish off the second pan with the remaining yellow, orange, red.
5g. You can gently shake the pans back and forth to encourage the batter to settle evenly. It will still look like the batter isn't extending all the way to the sides of the pan, but that's okay. Resist the urge to use a spatula and try to make it spread out more.
6. Put the pans in the oven and bake according to your recipe.
7. When the layers are finished baking, you will find that you can layer them either way -- the colors look good regardless of which direction they are going; I layer them according to which layer has the flatter-looking top. Use the frosting of your choice but make sure it isn't see-through! You want your guests to be amazed when you cut into that cake.
A note on cupcakes: As I said above, and as you'll see in my photos below, you can totally do rainbow cupcakes. You will find them a lot more labor-intensive than a cake, because you have to carefully drop the right amount of each color into each cupcake compartment. The trick is figuring out how much of each color to use, in order to end up with the right amount of batter. If you misjudge it, you might end up with a cupcake that is too small or too big. So, don't do what I did the first time I tried it, and put purple into every cup to start off with! Start with a single cup and fill it up with all six colors. This way you'll get a feel for how much batter you need of each color.
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...
The Pictures
I'm not posting pictures of every rainbow cake I've made -- just a sampling to give you an idea of what it can look like.
The first picture shows approximately what the cake layers will look like when you take them out of the oven. This photo is from my very first rainbow-cake attempt. (Sorry I don't have a photo of what it looks like before you put it into the oven! Must try to remember to take one of those next time.)
A slice from my first attempt:
For Isaac's 7th birthday, I decorated the cake to look like a baseball.
For Ruthie's 6th birthday, she wanted it "sheet cake" style (rectangular and just one layer). She also decorated this one herself. ;)
Rainbow cupcakes with blue frosting for Isaac's 10th:
For Ruthie's 8th (this year). Somehow it seemed that the rainbow came out particularly well this time! All the colors were evenly layered and looked great.
A bonus picture of what the above cake looked like before it was cut, because I'm very proud of my turtle. :)
Enjoy! And if you feel moved to make a rainbow cake of your own some time, take a picture of it and let me know. :)
In this post I give the complete instructions for making a rainbow cake, taking into account everything that I've learned from doing it so many times. I must give credit where it's due, and link to the webpage where I originally found the rainbow cake idea, but since I'm a writer I also felt the need to write it up in my own words. And, if you stick it out to the end, there are some pictures. :) Ruthie's rainbow cake came out particularly well this year!
So here's the basic procedure.
How To Make Rainbow Cake, by Joan.
What You Will Need:
* A white cake recipe and the ingredients to make it. (You can use boxed cake mix if that's how you roll.)(Here is a link to the recipe I use.)
* Pans to bake the cake in -- my instructions are written on the assumption that you'll be using two 9-inch round pans, but you can also use a 13x9 rectangular pan (I have done this once and it worked fine) or a muffin tin to make cupcakes (see note at the end about cupcakes).
* Betty Crocker brand gel food coloring. I get this in the cake-decorating section of my local supermarket. The gel food coloring gives much more vibrant colors than liquid, so it's essential.
* Six small bowls and six spoons for mixing the colors.
What You Will Do:
1. Prepare the pans. My recipe calls for greasing the pans, then lining their bottoms with parchment paper, greasing the paper, and dusting it with flour. That sounds like a lot of extra work, but it really helps make the cakes release nicely from the pans.
2. Start the oven preheating according to your recipe (probably 350). Mix the cake batter per your recipe.
3. Scoop all of your batter into a large measuring cup to determine how much you have, then do the math to divide that by 6, and scoop the resulting amount into each of your 6 bowls. For example, if your recipe makes 4 cups of batter, you would put 2/3 cup of batter into each bowl. Do not fret too much about getting the amounts precisely right. It really doesn't matter, as long as it's in the ballpark. Hint: If you'll be using this recipe again, write down somewhere the results of your math, so you won't have to do the measuring step again every time.
4. Use your gel food coloring to color each bowlful a different color. Be generous with the gel; you want your colors to be really vivid. You'll notice that you get four colors in the box -- red, blue, yellow, and green -- so you have to mix the orange and purple, which means that you'll use a lot more of the red than any other color. You'll also find that it's really hard to get the red batter to look red instead of pink. There isn't much you can do about this -- the main thing is to make sure that there's a definite, obvious contrast between the red and the orange. As long as you get a nice orangey orange, people will know that the red is red even if it looks pink.
5. Now for the fun / tricky part. Take your two pans and put the batter in as follows. We're going to scoop slightly more than half out of each bowl. In one pan, you're going to start with red, orange, yellow, and in the other pan you'll do purple, blue, green. Then finish off the first pan with the second half of the green, blue, purple, and finish the second pan with the remaining yellow, orange, red. Why do it this way? It helps ensure that the pans are balanced even though you aren't measuring precisely. If you scoop "what looks like a little more than half" from each bowl, and put half of those scoops in one pan and half in the other, it will work out. Maybe this doesn't sound like it makes sense, but it works. Trust me.
So, to be specific:
5a. Pick up the bowl with the red batter, and scoop out what looks like a little more than half of the bowl's contents. Plop it into your first pan and try to spread it out into a circle. Do not attempt to spread it all the way to the edges of the pan -- it isn't enough batter and it won't work. Just spread it into something approximating a circle in the middle of the pan.
5b. Pick up the bowl with the orange batter, and scoop out what looks like a little more than half of the bowl's contents. Plop it on top of the red batter and gently try to spread it out. Don't spread too eagerly because you don't want the colors to mix. You want the orange to sit on top of the red. But, and this is important, DO NOT FRET too much about getting it spread perfectly. It will look great regardless. Trust me.
5c. Now do the yellow. Scoop a little more than half of it on top of the orange and gently spread it.
5d. Now switch to the other pan. Scoop out a little more than half of the purple, plop it into the second pan, and spread it into a circle. Review what I said in 5a about how to spread it.
5e. Now do the blue and then green on top of the purple. Again: do not try to spread it too carefully and do not fret if it feels like you're just plopping the batter on top of itself. It is all going to work out.
5f. Now go back to the first pan and scoop out the remaining green on top of the yellow. Finish off the pan with the second half of the blue and purple. Then finish off the second pan with the remaining yellow, orange, red.
5g. You can gently shake the pans back and forth to encourage the batter to settle evenly. It will still look like the batter isn't extending all the way to the sides of the pan, but that's okay. Resist the urge to use a spatula and try to make it spread out more.
6. Put the pans in the oven and bake according to your recipe.
7. When the layers are finished baking, you will find that you can layer them either way -- the colors look good regardless of which direction they are going; I layer them according to which layer has the flatter-looking top. Use the frosting of your choice but make sure it isn't see-through! You want your guests to be amazed when you cut into that cake.
A note on cupcakes: As I said above, and as you'll see in my photos below, you can totally do rainbow cupcakes. You will find them a lot more labor-intensive than a cake, because you have to carefully drop the right amount of each color into each cupcake compartment. The trick is figuring out how much of each color to use, in order to end up with the right amount of batter. If you misjudge it, you might end up with a cupcake that is too small or too big. So, don't do what I did the first time I tried it, and put purple into every cup to start off with! Start with a single cup and fill it up with all six colors. This way you'll get a feel for how much batter you need of each color.
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...
The Pictures
I'm not posting pictures of every rainbow cake I've made -- just a sampling to give you an idea of what it can look like.
The first picture shows approximately what the cake layers will look like when you take them out of the oven. This photo is from my very first rainbow-cake attempt. (Sorry I don't have a photo of what it looks like before you put it into the oven! Must try to remember to take one of those next time.)
A slice from my first attempt:
For Isaac's 7th birthday, I decorated the cake to look like a baseball.
For Ruthie's 6th birthday, she wanted it "sheet cake" style (rectangular and just one layer). She also decorated this one herself. ;)
Rainbow cupcakes with blue frosting for Isaac's 10th:
For Ruthie's 8th (this year). Somehow it seemed that the rainbow came out particularly well this time! All the colors were evenly layered and looked great.
A bonus picture of what the above cake looked like before it was cut, because I'm very proud of my turtle. :)
Enjoy! And if you feel moved to make a rainbow cake of your own some time, take a picture of it and let me know. :)