It took me awhile to decide what I wanted to do for Babygirl's birthday cake. I needed essentially three cakes; one for the cake smash, one for the guests at the party and one for Sophia at the party. I knew they had to be colorful and delicious. Ultimately I settled on a large cake for the smash, a mini version of that for Sophia and cupcakes for the guests.
When we chose our photographer I noticed that many of the cakes were colored on the inside. This really spoke to my desire to have everything colorful! And it's really very easy to do.
First you have to choose a cake. I had a hard time with this at first because I thought that I needed to find a white cake recipe, since I would be coloring it. That would have been fine, except I couldn't find one that came out tasting very good or was the light and fluffy texture that I wanted. I had made strawberry cupcakes from here with a rainbow frosting once before, and they were delicious. I decided to give it a try and it worked perfectly. The strawberries didn't affect the coloring at all.
Simply divide your batter up into however many bowls you want depending on your colors. Add your food coloring to your batter and stir well, making sure to scrape the sides. I stuck with just three colors for the cake. For the cupcakes I wanted to do more colors and I found it easiest to divide the batter into Ziploc bags then add the food coloring.
Now add your batter to the pan(s). Start with a ladle full of the first color and pour it into the center of the pan. Don't worry about it completely covering the bottom, the remaining batter will help to spread it. Spoon a ladle full of your next color into the center of the first, and continue alternating colors, adding a ladle-full to the center each time. I found it created fun patterns on the top when I drizzled the colors for the last few layers rather than using the center technique. Really you can have lots of fun with this, especially if you have a little one who's able to help pour the batter. Babygirl mostly liked to stick her hands in it and tested my speed to stop her from eating it.
With the cupcakes you are basically just layering the batter, since there isn't really much room for it to spread. Just snip a corner of your Ziploc bag and squeeze a small amount of each color into the molds until they are nearly full.
For the frosting I used used my favorite butter cream frosting recipe from here. I love my frosting sweet, but you can use most any frosting. Just divide your frosting into three bowls and color them. Keep in mind that if you use liquid food coloring it can change the texture of your frosting slightly. I didn't have any issues with texture, but just like the cake, the colors were much more vibrant with gel food coloring. Scoop your first color of frosting into your piping bag making sure to keep it on one side. Next to it, scoop in your second color. Scoop the remaining color into the empty space, you want the frosting side by side, not stacked on top of each other for this effect. I highly recommend sticking with three or less colors if you do this method. You could also alternate stacking the frosting in the piping bag to give a more graduated look to the coloring, rather than twirled together.
For both cakes I decided to scallop the frosting. I love the look of a scalloped cake, and it's surprisingly easy to do, even if you are using multiple colors. I found this great tutorial on how to perfectly scallop a cake. I may never frost a cake normally again!
Ok, I probably will because even though it's a simple process, it's still hard to keep Babybear from wanting to help.
You're so talented!! And now that I've seen how to scallop a cake I'm totally going to have to try it!!
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