Making The Pastel Rainbow Cake

Our gorgeous Harper turned one last Saturday. She is our funny, walking, smiley little hell raiser and we love her to bits. I planned a small morning tea to celebrate the event which ended up being 24 people big! I enjoy planning a party, making invitations, thinking about the menu and deciding on the cake, but on the day I'm a wreck. The final running around, cleaning up, baking and trying to squeeze in a shower before the guests arrive and I'm a little bit 'difficult' to be around (sorry hubby xx)

I have a few photos to share of the day but as I'm collecting photos from a couple of people I don't have many to share today. I did want to show you all the cake though. After seeing a few pics around of rainbow cakes I decided to give one a go. I read this post for some tips and made a start the day before the party.

I started with two packets of butter cake mixture.

After dividing up the mixture between five bowls I carefully added the food colouring bit by bit until I was happy with the colour. I wanted to include the colours I had used with the invitations and other decorations. Each coloured mixture went into a greased and floured tin

About 20-30 minutes of cooking (this was dependent on where the cakes were in the oven) and the cakes were left to cool. I used a plate to trace around so each mini cake had an even edge. They were then placed in a container to wait for Stage 2 Icing planned for the following day.

The mid-way point of the icing process. I used the recipe for the icing from the reference post too. I should have levelled a couple of the mini cakes a little better as there was a slight lean (which I made up for with the icing!) I applied one coat of outside icing, allowed it to harden by placing it in the fridge for an hour and then did a second coat. Using a wet knife made the application easier.

The finished cake complete with candle and handmade bunting.

So pretty on the inside!

This was a really special cake to make and enjoy for Harper's birthday. It tasted great and received plenty of compliments, especially from the birthday girl!

I'll share some more pics of the day and the crafty things I made for the party in an upcoming post.