"What the Heck Do I have in my Cabinets" Recipe: A Cake!

Well obviously it was snowing here yesterday - so I opened my cabinets and decided to make a cake.  Not just any cake though - a rainbow cake.

I messed up the blue layer because I forgot to level it.  This was the first time I ever attempted a 6 layer cake.  So how did I do this?

First, I found the idea on Pinterest.  Then I looked at some other resources:  Like Martha Stewart and I am Baker.

So I had 2 white cake mixes.  First, I took my 2 round cake pans and I traced and cut 6 circles out of parchment paper.  Next, I weighed the bowl I was using and it was 436 grams.  Then I prepared 1 cake mix and after, I weighed the bowl again.  It was 1344 grams.  So the cake batter was 908 grams.  I took 3 smaller bowls and zeroed each out on the scale and put 290 grams of batter in each.  Then, since I had a little extra, I added about 8 more grams of batter to each bowl (wanted to make sure all were as even as possible).

I colored the first 2 purple & blue.  I greased the sides of my 2 round pans with Crisco and put a parchment circle in each.  Then I dumped the blue & purple in each.  Bake for about 17-20 minutes.  Let cakes cool in pan for 10 minutes, then flip them onto a cooling rack.  Wash out pans and prep again for green & yellow.  You'll have to make the second box at this time and it weighs about the same, so you'll divvy that up at about 300 grams of batter per layer.  Then repeat for red and orange.

After the cake layers are very cool - then you can start frosting.  For the inside frosting - I used a recipe that I love.  Wedding Cake Icing.  I don't use the whole 8 cups (about 2 lbs.) of confectioners sugar.  Maybe 6 1/2 -7 cups.  The trick really is to just let that shortening beat for a good 10 minutes.  It's really rich and stuff.  I did 2 layers, and then stuck it in the freezer for 10-15 minutes (I am Baker says 1 hour - but I found 10-15 minutes was sufficient).  Then I did 2 more layers, and freezer again.  Then the last two layers and freezer again.  I also used some of this white frosting to do a "crumb coat" on the whole cake.

Then I used about 1 1/2 cans of chocolate frosting to frost the outside.  It was probably actually only 1 can - I had some leftovers.  I threw some in a pastry bag to pipe some flowers no the edges to just make it look a little better.  I then let it sit in the refrigerator for about 3-4 hours to set.  At dinner time, I took it out and cut it about 30 minutes later.  That was that picture up there.

Overall it was really easy to do.  My soon-to-be 6 year-old son was really impressed with it and wants something like that for his birthday - but we might venture into different color schemes.  The only really thing I wish I did differently was remember to level the blue layer.  I threw it on top of the purple and then thought "Oh crap!  I forgot to level it!"  I debated about taking it off to do, but I thought it would break so I said "Screw it".  Now I wish I made that attempt.