For this past Easter, I decided I was going to make a cake with a surprise. I wanted to make a rainbow cake, but thought for Easter, a pastel colored cake would be more appropriate. Here's what I did:
I made a basic white cake batter and divided it into four bowls of approximately the same quantity. I used a cup measure, but it was an approximate. I used just a few drops of four colors, blue, red, green and yellow to make the pastel shades. It is easy to vary the intensity of color...if you want a deeper shade, gradually add more color. I did use gel food coloring, as I've read that it is better for the batter because it isn't a liquid to dilute the batter. I'm not sure that it would really matter, as I was going for a light color and only added a few drops.
I only have two cake pans, so I baked two cakes at a time for about ten minutes each, until the tops were brown and pulling from the sides. The cakes are half the thickness of a regular layer, obviously, so adjust your baking time!
After the first two cakes cooled and were removed from the pans to finish cooling, I cleaned up the pans and baked the remaining two layers. Once it was all cool and my frosting was made, I started icing!
I used a very basic buttercream frosting recipe. My goal was to have enough white frosting to mask the colors of the cake so that when we cut it the kids would get a surprise. I used two sticks of butter creamed with four cups of powdered sugar (about one pound of powdered sugar,) one teaspoon of vanilla extract and about two tablespoons of milk. Add more milk, a teaspoon at a time, if your frosting is too thick. If it is too thin, and a teaspoon or more of powdered sugar and contine to beat it in a mixer. (Love my Kitchen Aid stand mixer for making frosting!)
It was a hit! This is an easy way to add a bit of fun to a plain cake and surprise the kids!
