To make this rainbow cake I used four boxed cake mixes, I like to make it easy on myself. You can do it however you want, but we chose strawberry and chocolate.
The next step is to find your pans, being a fan of using what you already have I dug through my cabinets and came up with these.... I had all circular pans but it would have looked *imperfectly beautiful* if I had used various shapes, in fact it might have looked even better!
before you pour batter into your pans make sure you trace the shapes onto pieces of cardboard, this will help with stacking.
Bake the cakes according to the directions. (one *tip* I have learned for making a box cake a little more moist is to let it set for 10-15 min before you pour it into the pans, not sure why but it always turns out better)
After you have removed cakes from pans and let them cool you have two choices, 1. refrigerate for two hrs or so or 2. Just go for it like I do and fix any mistakes with more frosting!!
next is stacking, first you have to cut off the tops of the cakes to make them flat putting them in the fridge makes this step a bit easier, but not necessary.
I had to cut the cardboard a little smaller than the cakes but it wasn't a big deal. Put a piece of cardboard under each cake layer, not only will it stabilize the cake but it will also make cutting super easy.
Use your favorite frosting, if you want to use the same one I did you can find the recipe here at cooking light Italian Meringue (one of my favorite magazines!!) I like to use Wilton's concentrated paste food coloring, it won't make your frosting runny and you only have to use a tiny bit to get awesome color. You can get them practically anywhere, Walmart, Michaels, ect... anyplace with a cake decorating section.
I frosted each layer separately and then stacked them... they are probably a bit crooked, but who cares! they'll eat it anyway!! There you go!! Another *imperfectly beautiful* masterpiece!!
