the long awaited rainbow cake post

I made a five layer rainbow cake for Melody's 5th birthday this year. It was my biggest cake endeavor to date. I spent 3 hours on it. This cake was my inspiration. I love this perfect photo so much that I am thinking about framing it for my house. My cake did not turn out so perfect, but it was a success, thanks to Chad's help.

Here is the finished product:


Here are five bowls stacked and ready for food coloring:


Mixing:


Baking:


Cooling:


Here is where things got tricky (and I got tired). I used 9 cups of powdered sugar for the frosting, and still ran out. I used too much between the layers and things started to lean. Chad shored things up with these skewers and we let it sit overnight.


The next morning (hours before the party) I remembered I had some heavy whipping cream in the fridge. I whipped it up and covered the cake again with more frosting goodness.


The outcome was pretty!


And this face made it all worth it. She was pretty excited for me to cut into the rainbow surprise. It was the sweetest cake I've ever tasted, with all the frosting, but I didn't make this cake for taste... it was for looks.


Here are two more fun cake ideas. I might use this one next. It looks easier. And this one could be fun for Valentines Day. While we are on the subject of edible rainbows, check out these pancakes.

leah's birthday

Here I am again, after my longest blog hiatus ever. The past several months have been busy. Here is a bullet point list of what's up....

• In November and December we celebrated three birthdays, one anniversary, Thanksgiving and Christmas. We went to Houston for Thanksgiving and Illinois for Christmas.

• Chad loves his new job. He is more fulfilled in his work than ever before.

• We have buyers for our house!! After being on the market for 5 months, we have buyers. Keeping it clean enough for showing was a huge task for our family.

• We will move to Fayetteville this month! I can't believe it's finally going to happen! Chad and I are both excited to live near everything again. We can't wrap our brains around the idea of being right down the street from everything. We know there are things we'll miss about being in the country, too. We'll still have 12 acres out here, so that will help.

• I am 27 weeks into this pregnancy already. We are having a BOY. We are all thrilled to meet this little one in May. We have no name yet, but a short list of possibilities. I'm seeing my same midwife, Jennifer Creel, and am having a good pregnancy. I'm trying not to gain 55-60 lbs this time!

Below are pictures of Leah on her birthday on November 11. She asked for a dark blue cake. I couldn't figure out how to pull that off with my light blue food coloring, so this is what we ended up with. I used mini m&ms and sprinkles on top of light blue heavy whipped cream. Underneath all of the blue was the Hershey cocoa chocolate cake I've made at least 10 times in the past two years since I discovered the recipe on the can. No joke.





Coming up in the next few days is a long awaited rainbow cake post from Mel's 5th birthday party. And after that I'll post some pregnancy pictures.