The Big 04!

I love doing birthday cakes for my kids. There's something about that *Gasp!* "That's for me?!?!" face that speaks straight to my soul. Logan had been drawing pictures for me that showed what he wanted his birthday cake to look like - which was essentially a circle with a car on it. "No, Mama. I don't want the cake to be a car, I want a circle cake with a car on it!"

Gotcha, kid.

**Warning: Not for the food coloring intolerant. **

**However, I figure birthdays come but once a year.**

I decided that since we were doing a circle cake and all, I wanted to do something that was still wow. I found the idea for a rainbow cake online, and this is how it went! (I can't figure out why this first picture is loading like this. It's landscape on my computer, landscape on the thumbnail, and portrait after uploading. Sorry for making you turn your neck!)

I discovered after mixing up all the cake batters (two white cake mixes and 32oz 7-up - that's it!) that somehow, my 9" rounds have disappeared so I had to make do with a couple of 9" squares. I'm just glad I had two! The birthday boy didn't seem to notice.

Just by way of information, in case anyone decides to give this a shot in the future, I divided the cake mix by 1.5 cups into 6 bowls. Since I was doing rainbow I started with red in one pan and then went from the opposite end in the other. Whatever your first color is in the pan, use about 2/3 of your color. I then used a 1 c measure to scoop the colors in concentric-ish circles. Swirling won't make it more psychedellic.

How many muppets had to die?!

For the racecar on top, I knew there was no way I'd be able to freehand a decent one in icing. So, I printed off a simple picture of one, laid some wax paper over it and traced it in candy melts. $0.99 condiment bottles work great for this. Start with your outline, let it harden, fill in any details, let those harden, and then do your overall color.

Awesome.