To wish our dear friend Elliott a happy birthday and to express our sorrow that he and his family are moving to Singapore, my friends Tori, Erica, and I made a cake of epic proportions. The cake we made him last year was so extravagantly decorated that someone described it as “clown barf,” so to top it we had to take this cake to the next level.
Cake exterior. What's so special about this? you say.
Our plan? Tie-dye rainbow cake. The final product had three layers of trippy technicolor, complete with a gummy bear surprise (we didn’t have enough frosting to fill a large gap between the bottom two layers).
!!!
Here’s how it’s done: Make white cake batter, from a box or from scratch if you’re a purist about your frighteningly artificially-colored creations. Divide half of the batter evenly among six bowls, then add food color, making each bowl a different color of the rainbow (For more even layers have perhaps twice as much red as purple; calculating the exact amounts for equal layers requires nerdiness beyond the scope of this blog). Pour the red into a greased, 9-inch round cake pan. Before it spreads completely, pour the orange directly into the center of the pan, then the yellow, etc. You’ll end up with something like this:
Repeat with the remaining batter in a second cake pan. Cook according to instructions, allow to cool, then frost. We used two boxes of cake mix, and unthinkingly poured the entirety of the first into one cake pan, leading to our extremely dense but much more tie-dyed bottom layer. Needless to say, the cake was a huge hit! I bet it would work with cupcakes, too.
We'll miss you, Elliott! Would people in Singapore love you enough to do this? Doubtful.
photography credit to Tori!
-Julia
