B-Movie Star

This has been the month to celebrate at our house! Okay so we've had um . . . three birthdays (one turned 18!),  mother's day, a high school graduation, a House Party, a Project Grad party,  and now school and this crazy month is over which is a reason to celebrate!

For Gabby's graduation, she wanted the theme to be "colorful" and if you know Gabby, you know she lives her life full of color, so it was completely appropriate. It also made decorating pretty easy - since everything went!

We got this great idea to make a rainbow cake. I would give you the link to the blog where I originally got my idea, but yesterday my computer had a hiccup and wiped my profile off the computer, which erased all my bookmarks and favorites and shortcuts and all those things you come to rely on daily . . . sigh.  I have the technology, I will re-build, but it's going to take a few days, so I apologize to the originator of this idea for not giving credit.

First we made white cake batter (which turned yellowish because we used the egg yolks because we figured we're dying it anyway who cares!)

and then we separated it into seven different bowls. One by one we added food coloring. There is no set amount of coloring to use - just add slowly until you get the color you want.

We used the gel type of food coloring that is supposed to be used for icing, but it makes deeper and brighter colors than the liquid kind.

Stir the color up well

You can make your rainbow cake with as many or as few colors as you want. We pretty stayed with the standard ROY G BIV palette.

Next we oiled our pans and cut out wax paper to fit the bottom of the pan.  After that, you spoon in the batter, but don't stir it up.

There is no right or wrong way to put the colors in. You can try to make a pattern if you like - we just randomly put the batter in like a crazy quilt of colors. We made a three layer cake and no layer looked the same.

When the cakes were done baking, we frosted them with white and decorated them with colored M&Ms. Gabby thought chocolate went better with cake than skittles, although you could use those, or lifesavers, or necco wafers, or fondant or whatever the heck you want. You must forgive the blurry photo. Seriously, in all the celebration craziness there were no photos taken of the finished cake that looked decent. If it makes you feel any better I have one photo of myself with my daughter on her graduation day and it's of her and I in the kitchen behind the cabinet fixing food for the party. Um yeah. That really sucks.  So anyway - note to self - take time to remember to take the photographs!!!

Ours looked pretty much like this - and it tasted wonderful and everyone loved it! The end!!!

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This came from Disney's Family Fun site. It's just too cute - and it would be a lot warmer to make this snowman than one outside!

Ingredients

* 1 3/4 cups cake flour
* 1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa
* 1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
* 1/2 tsp. baking soda
* 1/2 tsp. salt
* 1/2 cup butter, softened
* 1 1/2 cups sugar
* 3 large eggs
* 1 tsp. vanilla extract
* 1 cup milk
* 1 1/2 cups vanilla frosting
* Shredded coconut (optional)
* 2 black licorice drops
* 1 large orange gumdrop
* Red shoestring licorice
* Red fruit leather
* 3 starlight mints
* 3 small gumdrops
* 2 sticks chocolate licorice

*Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour two ovenproof glass bowls, one slightly larger than the other. (Note: For our cake, we used one bowl with a 1-liter capacity and 6-inch diameter and the other with a 1 1/2-liter capacity and 7-inch diameter.)

*To make the cake, mix the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large mixing bowl. Sift the ingredients onto waxed paper and return to the bowl.

*In a separate bowl, blend the butter with the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla extract.

*Alternately, add the flour mixture and the milk to the batter in thirds, combining well after each addition. Fill the bowls about two thirds full. Bake the smaller cake for about 50 minutes and the larger cake for about 65 minutes.

*When done, the surface will spring back when touched and a toothpick inserted in the center will come out clean. Cool in the bowls for 10 minutes. Then invert onto a large, rectangular platter (about 17 by 12 inches) so the cakes resemble a snowman. Cool completely.

*Ice the cakes with the vanilla frosting, then sprinkle with shredded coconut, if desired. Add licorice drop eyes, insert an orange gumdrop nose and fashion a broad smile with shoestring licorice.

*For the scarf, cut two 2-inch-wide strips of fruit leather, notch the ends and wrap around the neck of the snowman. For the buttons, use starlight mints topped with gumdrops. Finish off the snowman with two chocolate licorice arms. Serves 10 to 12.

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