Tis the season for cakes for little people. Well, it was in April when I made these cakes. Now? Yep - not April - but still worth posting about.
Anika's request this year was a rainbow cake. Sure! A rainbow! But knowing these kids I know it needs to be chocolate. Hrm... how to do a chocolate rainbow cake. I guess I could do all the colors of brown like a rainbow. No... that's probably not what she had in mind.
I had two ideas on the table this time for a rainbow cake. The one was a rolled cake - it involved a sponge, piping perfect lines, rolling it, and filling it. That seemed a little terrifying - what if it didn't go well? What if I screwed it up? Yeah - maybe another day. Instead, I went with a bundt. I guess I had bundts on the brain (see next week's post for Xander's cake).
I got to play with food color and white cake mix. I whipped up the cake mix and measured it out evenly between 6 bowls. No really, I measured it with a scoop - I wanted it even. Then I used my handy gel color (which worked GREAT on cake batter but not in my swiss meringue frosting???) to get the colors super vibrant. I put each batter into a plastic bag and I was ready. I used the baking spray with flour in it to spray my handy old lady bundt pan (Thanks Krista!) and went to town. Cut the tip off the red and piped an even layer in the bottom of the pan. I banged the pan a few times to spread it out. Then did the same with the orange. I tried to keep each layer separate and not get the yellow on the red, or the blue on the red. By banging the pan I was able to get the layers perfect. I baked the baby and prayed. It came out of the pan beautifully and I prayed. It cooled, I wrapped it in plastic wrap then stuck it in the freezer. I had a crazy week so I wanted to make the cakes early. I've seen enough people who freeze cakes and figured I could do the same. It worked great. I took it out Friday night and made ganache to coat the cake. Since the cake was so cold aka frozen - the ganache poured over it perfectly. I filled in the center and outside with marshmallows for clouds.
When I brought the cake in - I asked Anika - doesn't it look like a rainbow? She wasn't so sure.
When we cut the cake - YAY! Rainbow! It worked perfect! I think she was a happy girl. She got her rainbow, chocolate, with a bonus of marshmallows. The crumbs were so pretty! I know that sounds silly – but seeing the crumbs of every color were fun to see.
Happy 7th Birthday Anika Joy!!
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