My youngest son celebrated his 20th birthday yesterday and he requested a rainbow cake.  Even though I have made it my goal to make vintage cakes for everyone this year I can’t deny my kids when they want something special for their birthdays. After all my word for the year is CELEBRATE but that doesn’t mean celebrating MY way. Right?

I’m not a big baker and I was a little concerned that a rainbow cake might be tricky to make.  I was surprised to find out that it’s not all that HARD to make but it does take a lot of TIME.

Ingredients:

• 2 white cake mixes of your choice and the ingredients to prepare them (eggs, oil, water)
• Gel food coloring in Red, Green and Yellow

Heat oven to 350°F. Spray 2 (8-inch) round cake pans with cooking/baking spray.

Mix up the cake mixes as directed on the packaging or prepare 2 white cake recipes.

Divide the cake batter evenly into six bowls.

Using food colors, color the batter in 1 bowl blue, 1 bowl red, 1 bowl yellow, 1 bowl green (by mixing yellow and blue) ,1 bowl orange (mixing red and yellow) and 1 bowl purple (mixing blue and red).

TIP: To get a darker red you may want to add 1-2 teaspoons of unsweetened baking cocoa.

Pour the batter from two of the bowls into the prepared cake pans. 1 color of batter into each pan. Put the bowls of batter you aren’t working with in the refrigerator.

Bake 18 to 20 minutes or until cake springs back when touched lightly in center and begins to pull away from side of pan. Cool 10 minutes. Remove from pans to cooling racks; cool completely.

Wash cake pans. Bake and cool remaining cake layers 2 at a time.

TIP:  You can speed things up by baking the cakes 3 layers at a time if you  have 3 pans.

Butter Cream Frosting

• 1 cup shortening
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 bag (2 lb) powdered sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 to 4 tablespoons milk

In large bowl, beat shortening and butter with electric mixer on medium speed until light yellow. On low speed, gradually beat in powdered sugar. Beat in vanilla. Add milk, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating until frosting is smooth. Beat on high speed until light and fluffy.

Trim rounded tops off cakes to level, if needed. On serving plate, place purple cake layer. Spread with frosting to within 1/4 inch of edge. Repeat with blue, green, yellow, orange and red layers.

Spread light coat of frosting on top and side of cake to seal in crumbs, then frost with remaining frosting.

Everyone loved the rainbow cake. It was a HUGE hit. The pieces are super tall so be sure to cut them thinner.

Thinner than I did. 🙂