Wednesday, April 4, 2012

It's a Rainbow Cake!

Lady V turned 4 last week. I can hardly believe she is 4. Of course when we have a 30 minute debate over what to wear to preschool or she informs me she used to eat vegetables when she was little but not anymore, I am sure she is 4. I had a few cake ideas floating around but since Lady V draws rainbows constantly and has recently taken to using her fairy wand to create rainbows floating through our house, I knew this would be the cake for her!

This is not my idea but one I have seen floating around Pinterest and a few blogs. I checked out the original blog post about it at Whisk Kid and Whisk Kid blogger Kaitlin was even featured on Martha, yup The Martha. How on earth do you end up on Martha? I cannot imagine. Very fun.

Here is my Rainbow Cake. Check out the time on the oven clock. Yes, that would be am. Not pm.

I chose to use a cake mix, at 10 pm I was borrowing ingredients from the neighbour across the street, so I figure I was doing well to have any cake in the mixer bowl! I divided the mix into 6 smaller bowls. It was a bit less than 2 cups per bowl. I then started the fun part. I used Wilton gels to colour each bowl of cake mix.



The first two cakes ready for the oven in 8" spring form pans that have been buttered & floured. The cake mix just covers the bottom. I baked at 325 for about 15 minutes, I think, I wasn't really watching the time! It does not take long as the cakes are so thin.


More beautiful colours ready for the oven.


The finished cakes cooling on the stove. I have a smooth top, so I am always worried my cooling racks will scratch it, thus the non-matchy tea towels. 


Mmmmm buttercream. I carefully sliced the top of each cake so it would be more even. I didn't need to cut much off the cakes as they were fairly level anyway. I made two batches of American Buttercream. The recipe is from Glorious Treats, a blog filled with yummy goodness! I used a thin layer of buttercream to stack the cakes, added a this crumb coat and put it in the fridge to chill. 


I ended up making another batch of buttercream to ice the cake, oh so much sugar. I added pink to the icing, as Lady V adores all things pink. The husband added skittles to the top in a lovely rainbow swirl.



Thrilled with her cake that was almost as big as she is!




Waiting with great anticipation for a peek at the inside....


I was so excited when it actually worked! I think I may have been as giddy as the 4 year old.
Definitely a make-again. It really wasn't difficult at all, however I do recommend starting before 10pm. Have a baby that sleeps helps a bit with that!





Tuesday, April 3, 2012

A Sweet Little Wedding Gift

A dear friend was married last August and I wanted to make her something special. She had a beautiful vintage wedding filled with adorable details and thoughtful words and music. Miss V was thrilled to bits to go to her first wedding, and at 3 and a half was convinced the bride was a fairy princess. She could hardly breathe when the bride knelt down to speak with her.


I had the best of intentions to have the gift ready for the wedding, or later that fall, or perhaps even Christmas. Alas my pregnant-self fell asleep while making it repeatedly, and once the baby arrived I was often too sleepy to do much of anything once he was settled and snoozing. Isn't there a tradition that wedding gifts can be given up until the first anniversary? That works for me.

Since the wedding was all vintage charm, I decided to embroidery a set of napkins for the bride and groom. It began as a set of 8, but eventually settled in as 4 napkins (see previous paragraph!) and a lovely gift certificate to a yummy restaurant. 

I used a simple transfer I bought at the fabric store, but I was a bit afraid it wouldn't quite wash out, so I ended up using the transfer under the napkin, and taking a fabric pen and just making a few dots to guide myself. I used simple embroidery stitches, just a running stitch, french knots and some lazy daisy's. Nothing too complicated. I think they turned out quite nicely and the bride loved them which is all that matters.