Rainbow Tie Dye Cake

What's more fun than rainbows?

Edible rainbows! This cake is full of them. In this instructable you will find how to make a bright tie dye layered cake, 3 colorful ways of frosting a cake and a rainbow cereal topping. All made from out of the box items found at your local food-selling store!

Please note I have included the specifics to my cake mix for mixing and baking but cook times and ingredient amounts may differ.

• White box cake mix--and ingredients listed on box
• Food coloring in the colors of the rainbow--red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple
• 2 round cake pans--I used 9" but 8" would probably work a little better
• 6 smaller bowls--or however many colors you use
• 1 can of frosting
• Butter knives--or cheese spreaders--for each color of frosting
• Knife or other flat frosting spreader

• Optional: Froot Loops, M&Ms or skittles

First mix up your cake mix as instructed on the box*.--1c water, 1/4c oil and 3 egg whites.

Once mixed split evenly into 6 bowls, dying each bowl a different color with food coloring, for a nice rich color start with ~7 drops each and add more if you think it should be a richer color.

Once all colors are mixed pour cake batter into the pans, starting at one end of the rainbow and working your way up**. When pouring the cake you will want to pour more of your bottom layer than of your top, start with enough to barely cover the entire bottom and with each additional layer use a little less batter. Varying the amount of batter you use will leave you with opposite amounts of each color for the other cake, meaning you should start one of your cakes with purple on the bottom and the other with red. For reference, your middle layer(s) should use about half your bowl of cake batter.

Once all batter is layered use a toothpick to "draw" a star in the batter, for best results drag the toothpick out from the center(not in toward the middle) and along the bottom of the pan so not only the top layer is moved.

Bake according to circle cake instructions on your box mix--350 degrees for 28 minutes.

*Use an egg white recipe if available, for best colors.

**To help in removing the cake from the pan add a circle of parchment paper to the bottom of each pan or spray with cooking spray.

After baking let cakes cool completely before frosting*.

Since I had a four layer cake I decided to use each cake face to demonstrate a different way of frosting rainbows, you could just as well use one of these frosting techniques to frost the top of your cake and keep the inner layers white.

Method 1: Tie (food)dye

As per the title you will be making a tie dye patter with food coloring, you will need... Food coloring-something to spread it with, I recommend cheese knives.

To start, frost your cake white and drop a few dots of food coloring, making sure to space out the colors in "rings". Using your cheese knife connect your same-color dots to form circles and start spreading the colors from the rings. This works best if you use small strokes connecting two colors at a time. Swipe from the outside in and the inside out for a little more variation.

Method 2: Frosting star

I think this one looks a little like a flower and would make a good flower petal cake too.

Mix up a small amount (1-2 tbs.) of each color and use a cheese knife to frost spaced out circles of each color. Much like method 1, use your cheese knife to spread the colors in short bursts in and out from the center. I first tried longer lines running from the center to the edge but it looks much better with short strokes.

*If your cakes grew into a more pronounced dome shape, instead of relatively flat, let cool upside-down to help flatten a little.

Method 3: Spiral Cake

This was my favorite frosting method, the colors are so vibrant and can be blended so nicely. Plus it reminds me of a bird.

Frost the whole cake white and add 2-3 drops of each color in a tight circle in the middle of the cake. Start from one dot and careful spread the coloring out to the edge in an arc. I started by skipping a color and spreading the other two, then filling in with the middle color and blending it into the others with varied strokes, again with a cheese knife. continue around the whole cake making broad arcs from the center out. I found it helped to use a clean knife each time I switched colors and to always blend from lighter color to darker.

Side Frosting

Using a long knife scoop enough frosting, no taller than the width of your knife, to cover the full height of your cake. Frost the sides with your knife straight up and down. Set your knife and drag in one direction around the cake until you run out of frosting and repeat until you are all the way around the cake. If there are still empty frosting spots or big gaps between your layers go over again will shorter gobs of frosting. Once all gaps are filled in go around your cake one last time to smooth the sides out.

Note: If you frost the tops of your layers with colored frosting, the side of your cake may pick up some of that and the color may run as you front the sides. This can make a cool effect if enough color gets picked up.

Frost the top of your cake white and sort your chosen colorful circles-Froot Loops-by color. Next decide on a pattern, I chose a bubbly circle but stripes are good too. Starting from the center with red, continue laying Loops in circles changing to a different color roughly each round/round and a half. Keeping the Loops offset and not in straight lines will give it a little more of a tie dye look.