I've always liked rainbows. Just look back at any drawing I did as a child. There was one on the fridge for years and years where I filled an entire (small-ish) page with hearts and rainbows. I don't know if I was just trying to prove that I was, indeed, a stereotypical girl. Regardless, I still heart a good rainbow. So, when I was asked to make a rainbow cake, I was pretty excited. (Especially since it started out as Dora and I wasn't terribly confident in my ability to make a cake actually resemble Dora. Phew.)
So, it started with the sketches from this earlier post. Then, I moved on to making the cake batter. Then, I cooked it. Then I ran it by my official tester. She approved.
There were some scraps.
My uncle ate those while fixing everything under the sun in my house. I love people who work for cake - especially scraps! (I'm very lucky.)
Then, there was frosting to be made. The mixer got a workout by batch 3 or 4.
Ah...frosted cake. Yes, it's ugly - that's really just a crumb coat so that I could rainbow-ify it without getting crumbs in the stripes of the rainbow. Plus, I used a pretty sweet buttercream, so less is more - that was my theory anyway.
Then, I used a toothpick to draw the rainbow from my template. I love it when I can see everything coming together.
I piped some thick frosting around the clouds, thinned a little frosting with more milk and corn syrup (more sugar!) and filled in the clouds. Then I did the same for the red and orange...
...the yellow and green...
...and finally the blue and purple. Try as I might, I could not get a photograph showing the true purple-y-ness of the purple, but it was *purple* I tell you, not bluey-purple. (Note to self: maybe you really should read that camera manual...)
Rainbow!
I won't lie - those stripes are deceptive. It probably took me 2-3 hours to do the clouds and the stripes. Then again, it involved 14 different frostings in the end. Each color had two different consistencies. And there were pastry bags to be washed over and over. And quite an array of colorful dishes and waters.
The cake itself was fairly big - 12 inches by 18 inches and at least 2 inches tall.
The cake then found its way into a large cake box.
I was so grateful when, at the last minute, I was able to buy a cake box from Coffee to a Tea. I added a cupcake sticker because it's cuteness.
And that's how I made a rainbow cake instead of sleeping.
(PS - I have a cold. Wonder why.) :)
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