So I made a Rainbow Cake…

Recently I saw a picture on Facebook of a Rainbow Cake. Once my daughter saw it there was no turning back – this was the cake she wanted for her 6th Birthday Party. I originally saw the picture on The WHOot which referred me to the Meaningful Mama Blog for the recipe. I have to admit I didn’t really read the recipe I just threw myself in the deep end – how hard could it be?

For all my Facebook likers you would already know I started making the cake at 3pm yesterday. I had three White Wings sponge cake mixes (yes packet cake) which I think cost me 80 cents each. I bought two tubs of vanilla Betty Crocker icing, a packet of Smarties and 2 packets of Freckles for decoration (there was no way I could even attempt the fondant striping on the side of this cake). And so it began….

So I made each packet cake and halved the mixture of each giving me six different batches to colour. It has been noted by one of my Facebook followers that I omitted Indigo therefore not making it a technically correct rainbow but I was copying the picture and thought that a bunch of six year old’s wouldn’t miss the Indigo layer. I cooked each cake and quietly prayed that each one would work out. Hallelujah – they did!

Then on to construction. I have to say by this stage I was getting pretty stressed. I had a two year old who needed a bath and dinner (my husband and two older kids where at a birthday party) and I was starting to worry if this thing was actually going to come together. As an added stress my daughter was having her party the following day at Cupcake Dolly. It was a cupcake party where all the kids get in there aprons and chef hats and decorate cupcakes. Now I couldn’t rock up to Cupcake Dolly, who specialise in (extremely yummy) cakes, with a dodgy birthday cake. That would just be pure embarrassment!

Each layer was cemented together (in order) with Betty Crocker vanilla icing.

I was pretty happy by this stage. I felt quietly confident I had pulled this off. I will let you in on a secret. Kids parties totally stress me out, especially the ones I host. My husband will tell you, I freak right out, I have to have everything perfect and run to plan. I will never forget the time we hired “Spiderman” to come to my son’s birthday and as soon as he arrived one of the kids yelled out “You’re not Spiderman!”, I had to go into immediate damage control. When the kids are little you also need to make sure the parents who stay are entertained and fed too. The whole deal freaks me out but I want my kids to have birthdays that make them feel special, that they will enjoy and remember.

Now time to ice this beast!! Thanks to Betty Crocker I smeared the whole cake with vanilla icing. I put Freckles on the side and Smarties on the top. And there it was – The Rainbow Cake. *sigh of relief*. I finished at 8pm and my daughter was asleep by this stage. When she woke in the morning I showed her the cake. She was a little perplexed “It doesn’t look like the picture”….I explained that inside (I hoped) it was rainbow but mummy couldn’t make the outside exactly like the picture (crisis averted).

The party was great. The kids all had a great time decorating cupcakes.

But in the back of my mind I knew the cake still had to be cut. It looked ok from the outside but what about when we cut it. I had a strange feeling like they get on Masterchef when they present the dish to the judges and cut it open to reveal…either an under cooked disaster or a perfect “restaurant quality” dish. I didn’t really need that extreme I just wanted Jess to be happy… So the time had come…..

A SUCCESS! The kids were SUPER excited, there were lots of WOWS and Jessica was beaming from ear to ear. Mission accomplished.