How To Make A Rainbow Cake

I love a fabulous surprise. One of the best ones I had took place on a Sunday afternoon, as I was making my way from Connecticut back home to Pennsylvania where I was living at the time. As I was driving through the winding interstate, the road crested and I was greeted by a sky filled with about 30 hot air balloons. It was one of those moments when your breath catches.

It was so spectacular to see those colorful hot air balloons randomly dotted in the sky. They were barely moving, they just seemed suspended and I was able to savor the view long until they were in my rearview mirror.

I want my kiddos to feel the excitement of surprises too and I plan ahead to make sure they have those thrilling moments. Sometimes it comes in the form of ambushing them with water balloons and their latest surprise was a rainbow cake. I’d never attempted to make one before and wanted to share the step by step photos with you.

The good news is that it wasn’t difficult at all, but definitely time consuming because it requires you to bake six (yes 6!) cakes. I think it would be fair to say that most of us have only two 8 or 9 inch cake pans – which means that you are baking for at least an hour and a half. So be mentally prepared for that and keep your timer near by.

I used a basic box cake recipe, but one made from scratch will do fine. As far as the coloring, I wanted a pastel look so I used small amounts of food coloring to give it a delicate color. I frosted it with white frosting and added rainbow sprinkles. My kids were psyched that there was a cake in the house, and when they saw the first slice, their eyes lit up. I can’t wait to make it again, I think it is such a pretty cake!

I bought Betty Crocker’s New Classic Gel Food Colors.

I was really happy that Betty Crocker included a Color Blending Chart so I knew what ratios to use to make orange and lime green!

I used three boxes of Betty Crocker’s Super Moist White Cake Mix and followed the directions. My Kitchen Aid was almost brimming over!
I wanted to make sure that I mixed the food coloring in a white bowl so I could have a better sense of the color.
If you compare the above photo to the below photo, you will see that the color of the batter very closely resembles the final color of the cakes when they were baked.