Rainbow Cake

Recently, I tried my hand at baking. I love sweets, I love to make people happy and baking someone a homemade treat is an easy way to make them feel special. But you know what? I'm a TERRIBLE baker – good intentions and all the effort in the world don't affect the outcome in the slightest. You have to be attentive, precise and follow directions. Whaaat??? Yes. All of the above.

RAINBOW CAKE
This was my first effort. I saw these colorful cakes on several blogs and whipped out my mixer. I've made cakes before, but now that I've been reading so much about food, I thought it translated into a new skill set. Completely delusional.

It was five layers, originally six, of good ol' white cake mix from the box. You whip some gel food coloring in there, pop it into the oven and like magic, a gorgeous rainbow cake comes out. Okay, I'm lying. I had a mess of bowls for all the colors. I only had two round pie tins. My oven is from the 1970s but it only cost me $25 so I don't complain. And let's not forget, I don't pay attention. End result, beautiful but dry. Topped with a buttercream frosting that was way too sugary and gritty. My co-workers ate the crap out of it, but I found it disgusting. They probably thought it was less than delightful too, but are too kind to say so. Well, I can't be perfect at everything!

When I first started on this rainbow adventure, I diligently washed everything as I went. But only because I needed those two pans again. TIP: Wash the frosting off everything. It hardens and is very hard to clean up. Just ask my husband, who usually finds unexpected evidence of my culinary experiments when he's cleaning up after me.

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Can we say major disaster on the first layer? I got a taste preview at this point and things weren't looking good, but I was invested.

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Switched tools for getting cakes out of the pan and hey, check out my cooling rack. It's a strainer but use what you have, right?

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The layers came out in weird shapes. So I alternated the lumpy parts with the flat ones and covered it with a ton of frosting. Voila!

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Next time, I'm leaving the baking to the pros.