Worth a Shot

For months now I've been seeing images of rainbow cakes and rainbow pancakes. I've been dying to try it because it seemed like a relatively easy thing to do that makes such a big impression! My mom's birthday was the 21st and mine was the 26th and we got together on Sunday to celebrate. What better time to try it out?

This weekend, however, we were having people over to celebrate the finishing of our basement (only two years in the making!) so I had to do this on Friday morning and hope that it survived, as well as not be too dried out by Sunday.

I like to give myself a challenge, so to start off I used two round cake pans that are slightly different sizes and definitely different shapes (one may be a pie pan because it has somewhat tilted sides to it). All the examples I've seen haven't given any clues about how to approach making this cake other than one site that said she used Wilton tints. I don't remember what site it was, but it was such a great suggestion! I've never used them before (found at places like JoAnn's, Michael's and Hobby Lobby), but with the coupon I used it work a thousand times better than the Betty Crocker food coloring from the grocery store. I loved the vibrancy of all the colors and you didn't have to use much to reach that level.

Icing it was the major problem. I wanted it to be covered in white icing so that when my mom cut into it, it was a surprise. With every other layer a different size, it didn't cover that well and I was afraid that the surprise was ruined. Most people thought that it was a strawberry cake because the red layer showed through better than the others.

But it was a hit because I don't think most people had ever seen layers so colorful. My dad remarked that it looked like a cake that a kindergartner would color, and I took that as a compliment! Yes, it's pretty sloppily made, but the colors show through and that was my goal!