Rainy Days Need Rainbow Cakes!

It's a rainy day here in South Jersey and my favorite way to dispell the rainy day gloom-ies is to bake! 

I've always loved to bake--since my homeschool days, on the family farm, an hour from ANYWHERE, I would spend a lot of time baking. 

Anyways--I never eat the stuff--ask my poor husband! 

I bake up a storm and set it prettily on the counter and throw it all away the next day before he gets around to eating a piece. 

He then finds said baked goods in the trash and laments the fact the he was "just getting around to eating it."

It's a sickness. 

I should set up shop so that someone could get some enjoyment out of it! 

But, I digress...

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I started by mixing up white cake mix.

If I were making a "fancy" cake I would have mixed up two boxes or made a large recipe of homemade cake but this wasn't fancy--it was just fun. =)

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I equally divided the batter into bowls and mixed in some gel food coloring I got at JoAnn's (I bought rainbow colors when I made Maeve's birthday cake).

Aren't they pretty?

Next, I layered three colors in the bottom of two, 9 in pans. 

If I were being "fancy" I would have made 6 layers--one at a time so that you get the real rainbow affect!  

(like the cake pictured here!)

In the interest of full disclosure I'm including this picture of 

*The Great Flour Accident of 2010*

This is very common when I bake. Oy.

That's what I get for being fancy and flouring my pans!

Here's the *warm* color layer fresh from the oven!

And the *cool* layer....

(sorry the Art Teacher within couldn't resist!)

Also for fun, I whipped up a batch of frosting from my cousin Christine's recipe.

It's a bit different than an average buttercream--very very light and fluffy (not light in calories).

Included, for your viewing pleasure, a recipe card--scrawled in my own indecipherable script--in the days before I married Mr. Wonderful! 

I absconded with my Mother's recipe box and copied my favorite recipes and just for a touch of fun added butterfly stickers.

Somtimes it's the little things that bring the most joy. =)

The recipe, if you're interested:

1 c crisco

1/2 c butter

1 egg

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1/3 c milk

5 c powdered sugar

*dump together and mix 10 minutes 
(this is where the Kitchen Aide comes in handy!)

***Also for the sake of full disclosure, I totally forgot the egg. It still tastes fine and is probably "safer" anyways since there's no risk of whatever possibly kills you when you eat raw eggs. Although, after 31 years of eating raw cookie dough I've been just fine so there probably isn't too much to worry about. 

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Finished product!

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Here's a much better, brighter, prettier tutorial than mine 

...you know...

now that you've suffered through this. =) 

You're welcome.

Also; I'm sorry. =)