Cora's Rainbow Cake

When I decided on a rainbow theme for Cora's birthday party, I knew I would have to make a rainbow cake.  I had seen several variations on the internet, and they just begged me to try them!

This cake above appears to have been made from six separate layers of cake.  Although it is beautiful, I do not have the patience to bake and cool six separate layers.  Plus, I could just see one of my layers being too thick or unbalanced, and it would throw off the whole effect.  Too much work and too much pressure.  Instead, I opted for this type of cake:

This cake, featured on Omnomicon, is a diet, Weight Watchers-worthy cake.  Since I was making this cake for my two-year-old's birthday party, I did not think it needed to be a diet cake.  For that reason, here is what I did:

I bought two boxes of white cake mix.  (I got white cake that used egg whites only so it would really take to the color better.)  I made each box according to the instructions, and then I separated all of the batter into a total of six bowls.

I used gel food coloring (it has a stronger color, in my opinion) and dyed each bowl a color of the rainbow.

Then, I started pouring the batter into a greased pan, starting with red.  I used about 2/3 of the red and then a little less than that of the orange, and so on.  This is because each time a color gets added on top, it spreads out the color beneath it, and if I had used the same amount of every color, the bottom colors would have been sparse and the top colors dominant.

You can see that by the time I got to purple, I didn't have to use much.  I probably only used 1/3 of the batter, whereas I had used most of the red.

Next, I did a reverse of the colors by making a new pan with purple first, then blue, then green, etc., ending with red.  

Because I hadn't measured exactly, one cake ended up being much bigger than the other.  When they baked up, it was even more evident:

This made layering the cakes a little tricky, but it worked out okay.  I just flipped the smaller one upside down.  

The final product looked like this:

You can see by looking at it that the bottom layer was much smaller than the top layer.  If I'm honest, I'll tell you that it really bothered me.  (Yes, I know I have issues.)  I wish I had either measured more accurately to have two layers end up the same size.  

Actually, I wish I had done would I would suggest you do:  Just make one layer out of one box of cake!  The slices were massive and didn't really need to be.  However, if you do decide to only do one layer, remember when dividing your batter between your bowls that your bottom color will need much more batter than your top color.  So, if you do red first, you'll need significantly more red than purple.

If you do decide to do two giant layers, at least put lots of frosting between them.  My cake didn't have enough at all.  I should have used two full containers of frosting on the cake, but I tried to squeeze by with one and then ended up using part of another to finish the outside.  Don't do that.

So there you go.  Rainbow cakes are fun and totally worth the effect - especially when you first cut into it and see your guest's eyes!  :-)

Now, on a separate but related topic: Rainbow decorations.  I tried very hard to keep my decor extremly simple for this party.  I tend to go a little overboard sometimes (see here), and I really wanted this to be a fun, relaxing party.  For that reason, I only made the balloon wreath I showed you before...

... and some colorful balloons, hung from the ceiling, along with a flower banner:

A red tablecloth with Skittles scattered on it and the kids' rainbow lollipops rounded out the decorations.  It was simple, but effective.  

In a similar vein, the only food I served was the rainbow cake, and, although I had considered more of a menu, I think the simplicity just added to the perfection of the morning.

I can't wait to see what kind of party Cora will want next year!  :-)

Super Stupendous Seuss Slop

I know I said I'd post pictures yesterday of Brennan's party food, but yesterday was quite a day.  Jim was still super sick, my cat was sick, Cora woke up two hours earlier than normal in the morning giving me no time to get my bearings, my house was such a disaster that I spent ten minutes looking for Cora's missing barrette only to find it in a box of Ritz on the kitchen floor, and, to top it all off, I drove through a wicked wind storm / tornado warning and had a trampoline fly in front of my car and hop a fence.

Let's just say I was in full survival mode yesterday.

But here I am today, and things are much more under control.  Jim went back to work this morning, the house is a little more organized, the sheets have been washed, the streamers have finally come down and the piles of cupcake debris have been cleaned up.  I don't know about y'all, but when my physical life is in order, my mental state is in order.

So now.  Let's talk food.  :-)

Next to decorating for a party, creating a great display of food is my favorite part.  And a Dr. Seuss party gives plenty of opportunity for fun food options.

What Dr. Seuss party would be complete without green eggs and ham?  I made green deviled eggs and small ham sandwiches, but I was so busy I forgot to get a picture of them!!  Such a bummer because the green eggs looked awesome!

The rest of the menu included...

Red Fish and Blue Fish 

(from "One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish")

(I forgot to get a picture of these, too, so I took a picture of the leftovers.  Sadly, the colors bled a little when they were on top of each other in the refrigerator.  The display on a giant white platter was much cuter.  Yet another blogger fail.)

Pretzel Turtles

("Yertle the Turtle")

A Crumb that was Even Too Small for a Mouse

("The Grinch Who Stole Christmas")

Cat in the Hat Parfaits

Pink Yink Ink Drink

("One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish")

 Thing One / Thing Two Cupcakes

("The Cat in the Hat")

I also had macaroni and cheese for the kids who didn't love ham sandwiches. (And I'm so glad I did.  We polished off three boxes of Kraft in the blink of an eye!)

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Now that you've seen the final product, here are a few tricks / good-to-knows if you want to try to duplicate any of this menu:

1.)  It is really hard to find a fish cookie cutter.  I ended up ordering mine from The Cookie Cutter Shop and it was worth every penny not having to drive around looking for one.

2.)  If you don't regularly make Jello Jigglers, do yourself a favor and use this trick:  Line your pan with Press'n Seal and then spray it with cooking spray before pouring in your jello.  Then, when it is time to cut your jello, just lift the Press'n Seal straight out of the pan and set it on the counter.  The jello will sit on top of the Press'n Seal in a beautiful block, you won't have to use any hot water, and you will be able to just use your fingers to pick up your cutouts.  It is, in my opinion, the only way to do it.

3.)  It takes a LOT of strawberries to make Cat in the Hat parfaits.  If you're looking for ways to save money, opt out of this one.

4.)  Remember to ask about nut allergies if you make the turtles.  Brennan's preschool is nut free because of some life-threatening nut allergies, and I didn't want to unknowingly endanger any of the kids.

Turtle Recipe:

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper, cover it in a single layer of pretzels, top the pretzels with Rolos or Dove caramel chocolates, and put them in a 300 degree oven for 4 minutes.  Pull them out and press a toasted pecan half on each.  

(No one will care that they are this easy.) 

5.)  For the Pink Yink Ink Drink (pink lemonade), I used Starbucks Frappucino bottles that my friend Gaylene and I had saved for a month or two.  A little Goo Gone and some adorable red and white paper straws from TinShins Cupcake & Company made these bottles irresistible.   I cut out the tags and attached them with glue dots so they were easy to remove when we were done.

(I've already run these bottles through the dishwasher and stored them away in my cupboard... Don't be surprised if they make a return appearance at another party or two.)

6.)  It is a major pain in the neck to find blue cotton candy.  I looked at Wal Mart, drug stores, Kroger, and Blockbuster.  In Nashville you can apparently buy it in two places: The Nashville Predators games and Chuck E Cheese's.

7.)  It is even more of a pain to keep cotton candy fresh.  A friend bought us two bags at a Preds game, and they turned into a solid rock after just one week with the bag tightly sealed.  (Jim made a run to Chuck E Cheese's the night before the party to buy two fresh bags.)

8.)  It is truly impossible to keep cotton candy fluffy on fresh frosting.  I frosted these cupcakes and topped them one hour before the party:

And this is what they looked like when the party was done:

:-(

As soon as the party started they were already little blue mounds, and not one party guest got to see them all soft and downy.  Apparently I should have frosted them the night before and let the frosting harden slightly.  I didn't do that because I wanted to give the cotton candy something to stick to, but that moisture worked like a tongue and caused the fluffiness to simply melt away.  So sad.  (Coincidentally, there are pictures of these cupcakes all over the internet, and no one else has mentioned this problem.  I don't know why I'm always the first, but don't say I didn't warn you!!)

And there, my friends, are more details than you ever wanted to know about the food at Brennan's Dr. Seuss party.  If you missed my last post about the decorations and games, be sure to click here.

Have a great Wednesday!!

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I'm linking to Feature Yourself Friday at Fingerprints on the Fridge!

Halloween Ketchup

No, not real ketchup.  It's really "Halloween Catch Up." But much of this post revolves around food, so I thought that ketchup might be more appropriate.

We had a few fun Halloween festivities that didn't get recorded on the blog, so I wanted to go back and document them.

But before I do, allow me to distract you with Cora and her first Stella and Dot necklace:

You're never too young for fabulous accessories.

Okay, back to the food.

We host a small group from our church here every other week, and I have just loved preparing snacks and treats for our meetings.  For our first meeting a few months ago I did a pizza theme including...

veggie snack pizza

chocolate peanutty brownie pizza

 and fruit pizza.

For our meeting last week, I decided to do fall-like snacks.  (Over the course of six days I made five enormous batches of caramel corn.  As in, 35 gallons.  And I do believe every bit got eaten.)

Last Friday I took  about fifty baggies of said caramel corn to Jim's work for the office trick-or-treat.  It was fun.  Brennan, my little pizza boy (yes, we truly are food obsessed), enjoyed choosing candy with his friend, Mason.

Cora just enjoyed running away from Mommy and Daddy at top speed.  She did, however, slow down long enough to meet Junior.

She couldn't be more different than her brother.  Brennan wants nothing to do with people in giant costumes.  He does, however, get excited by silly little things.  And his latest thing is what I call "A sunny breakfast."

At least he doesn't slather his eggs in ketchup.