I think we’ve already established on this blog that I may have a bit of a baking problem. Well, I continued that trend this past weekend, when I decided to embarc on Whisk Kid’s Epic Rainbow Cake.

I had blogged about this cake a while back, and my friend Iris saw it and asked if I would make one for her baby celebration (she was pregnant at the time). Of course I said yes–who doesn’t want an opportunity to bake an epic rainbow cake?–and then promptly forgot about it. By the time it got closer, she insisted that I could really just bake any cake, it didn’t have to be the epic rainbow cake, but it was too late. I already had plans.

Since the cake was for a baby blessing, I wanted to make the outside as cutesy as possible, to contrast with the rainbow inside. The blocks say baby, and those are little candy baby feet on the outside.

The happy family. Aren’t they cute?

Iris prepared to cut into the cake. At this point, a few people had heard about the inside of the cake but most had not. And even the folks who heard rainbow cake weren’t sure exactly what to expect.

The cake is cut.

And it’s a rainbow!

There’s a full Flickr set documenting the construction of the cake from batter to cutting for those who are interested, but it was definitely a learning experience. Because Jack is a vegan, I changed the recipe up from the original, which relied heavily on butter and eggs.. The cake I found on the internet, and the frosting was vegan lemony buttercream from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I think I would have been better off with a cake from there as well; this one was a bit too dense for me, and I’ve made fluffier vegan cakes using that book.

I also learned that if you bake layers colored with gel dye, don’t stack them with wax paper in between as the gel will seep through and dye the surface of the adjacent layers. I learned that you can make your own baking powder if you run out. I learned that it takes about 7 batches of vegan lemony buttercream to frost and decorate this cake. I learned that you need to make sure that the cake cover fits over your cake before the day of the party. I learned that I have awesome friends who are willing to let me pick them up from the party, drive them back to my apartment, and then drive over again with them very carefully balancing a cake in their lap. I learned that a six layer rainbow cake with all that frosting weighs at least 10 pounds.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the cake, though and that’s what counts. It was fun, and the general consesnus was that these would be a big hit at pride, especially with some edible gold glitter on top.

I still kind of want to make a double rainbow one, though.

Someday.

Do you think they have kitchens at Comic-Con?