Rainbow Cake

Well, this will answer the how. I'm not sure I have a good reason for the why. This cake was cute, but wow it took a lot of work.

serves: Lots with huge pieces in Time: eternity (really about 12 hours)

2 white cake mixes

6 eggs*

2 1/2 C. water*

2/3 C. vegetable oil*

food coloring

Frosting:

2 sticks butter, softened

1 tsp. vanilla

approx 4 C. powdered sugar

1 tsp. milk

1 small tub Cool Whip

Skittles

Mini marshmallows

Prepare cake mixes according to the package directions. Split batter into six smaller bowls, about 1 3/4 C. batter in each. Color each with food coloring. Pour each color of batter into 9" round cake pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes. Cool completely.

Meanwhile, prepare frosting. Whip room temperature butter until smooth. Add vanilla. Gradually add powdered sugar, about half a bag, to taste. The mixture will be somewhat chunky. Add 1 tsp. milk to smooth. If it doesn't come to desired consistency, continue adding milk, 1 tsp. at a time, until it smooths. Fold in Cool Whip.

Stack layers on a cake plate, starting with purple and spreading a thin layer of frosting in between each.
Frost entire cake with a very thin layer of frosting. Place cake in the freezer long enough that the frosting is set. (Probably about an hour).
Cover cake entirely with frosting. Rinse icing spatula and dip in warm water. Use clean spatula to smooth frosting to desired finish. Keep a cup of warm water on hand to dip spatula frequently. Return cake to the freezer and allow frosting to set, about another hour. Decorate with Skittles and marshmallows as desired.

* - These ingredients may vary. This is how they were listed on the cake mixes I chose.

Notes: There was just enough frosting to handle the job here, but it was super sweet. For my own personal tastes, if I'm crazy enough to do it again, I will use less sugar. I opted for golden vanilla cake mixes instead of white. As you can see, there was no problem with the color being bold and I like the vanilla flavor better.

I also recommend keeping the cake in the fridge, even after decoration. The frosting kind of melted while it was sitting out so the Skittles I had carefully placed kind of slid. It didn't matter a whole lot, because I'm not adept at frosting a cake smoothly anyway, but it would be terrible to have it flawless until it melted.

I baked everything with only two 9" cake pans, and it totally sucked. I recommend using at least three so you don't have to wait eternity for the layers to cool so you can keep baking. I had a problem with the green layer because I didn't let it cool enough; I kind of glued it back together with frosting, but after I served the cake, the green layer contributed to a very sad toppling incident.

P.S. I totally stole this idea at Melissa's urging from The Idea Room.