Yesterday’s Rainbow Dessert Table featured a six layer rainbow cake that several readers wanted to know how to re-create and I’m happy to oblige with a how-to post!  The rainbow cake idea has been making its way around the blog world with the oh-so-popular rainbow parties (which I obviously love!) and I was very excited to finally try my hand at them both.  I used this recipe from Martha for a bit of a guide on the how-to end, but I used box cake instead of homemade (yeah…the six layer were enough of a challenge for me to tackle!).

I started with two boxes of Betty Crocker white cake mix.  Although white sounded a little dull initially, I thought the colors would work best on a light colored cake and I actually really enjoyed the flavor!  Each box of cake was divided into three bowls (about 1 1/4 cups of batter for each bowl) and then dyed with food coloring.

I sprayed my 9″ round pans with no-stick spray and, on Martha’s recommendation, placed a circle of parchment paper at the bottom of the pan.  Then the cakes baked for 15 minutes each at 325 degrees (for my non-stick pans, I find 325 works MUCH better than the traditional 350).  Since I only have two 9″ round pans, I repeated this step three times to bake all six cakes :)  The parchment paper was a blessing, as it helped keep the cake together when flipping each layer out of the pan and setting it on a wire rack to cool.

Once all of the cakes were baked and cooled, I began stacking (sans parchment paper) and frosting between each layer.  For the frosting, I used Betty Crocker Whipped Vanilla frosting – a shocking three cans worth to get the entire thing well coated!  And although I LOVED the fluffy finish on this frosting because it somewhat resembles clouds, it seemed to be on the melt-y side since it isn’t as thick as traditional frosting.  So, after stacking all of the cakes and adding a crumb layer to keep it all moist inside, the whole shebang went into the fridge overnight.  Honestly, at first I wasn’t really sure what to do with it because the cover of my cake stand wouldn’t fit on top!

Just before the entire dessert table came together, I added the top coat of frosting (the third can…that Mr. Lemon so nicely ran out to buy the morning of the party!) and again set the cake into the fridge, this time just for a few minutes.  I didn’t want one of the layers sliding off in the heat!  The frosting set up very nicely in the fridge and still kept the marshmellow-y finish.

The effect when cutting into a rainbow cake is simply priceless!  I wish I had pictures of some of the kid’s faces when they saw the inside – made the whole thing worth it!