Reid’s daycare teacher decided to celebrate the birthdays of all of the kids whose birthdays fall in the summer tomorrow. I immediately volunteered to bake the cake that they would share. I’ve been looking for an opportunity to try my hand at a rainbow cake, like the one Amy at [1] Muddy Boots made. I doubt I’d enjoy the additional stress in the midst of planning for a real party but without the rest, I was keen. I started the cakes at 6 and finished by 11:25. I’m so wired from the sugar - mmmm, marshmallow fondant - and I’ve got a second wind, that I decided to write down what I did.

I followed Amy’s [2] directions for the rainbow cake -basically, I added gel icing colouring to white cake mixes - and also followed her [3] directions for marshmallow fondant. Her instruction to grease your hands with Crisco was critical to success!

Adding the food colouring to the cake batter was a bit like making playdough. I loved the vivid colours.

[4]

Just look at them! You know the cakes are going to be amazing.

[5]

In order to avoid baking 6 cakes - 2 at a time in my little oven -I put two colours in each pan. Another time, I think I’ll try 6 cakes.

[6]

I need to learn how to bake cakes with flat tops. I had to cut the rounded parts off of the first two cakes. Of course, this meant that I had to try the cakes, just in case.

[7]

I melted a small bag of marshmallows in the microwave in only 1 minute and added about half of the 1 kilogram bag of icing sugar before remembering to add the 2 tablespoons of water called for in the recipe.

[8]

The water kneaded in easily and I added probably 3 tablespoons when all was said and done.

[9]

Amy mentioned chilling the fondant overnight but I didn’t have the time and it rolled like a charm still warm.

[10]

I measure against theh top of my cake-taker to see the size of marshmallow fondant I would need and then draped it over the cake. Marshmallow fondant is much more forgiving of irregularities in the stacked cakes than regular icing. If only I could figure out how to make cream cheese-flavoured fondant, I’d switch to it entirely.

[11]

I used some more icing gel to colour more marshamallow fondant to decorate the top of the cake. Reid has been very interested in rainbows lately, thanks in part to [12] They Might Be Giants’ [13] ROY G BIV, a song about the colours in a rainbow. I couldn’t manage indigo. She’ll have to tell the kids its ROY G BV instead.

[14]

And here is the final product. Ta da! (If I can get a teacher to take a picture of the cake once it’s cut, I’ll post it, too.)

[15]

Edited to add: I asked Reid’s teacher to take a pic of the cake once it was cut since I couldn’t see the inside. She sent this piece home with Reid. You can’t taste the food colouring.
[16]