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Rainbow cake, the most fabulous kind

So Dad got this weird little wafflemaker-esque thing, I’m honestly sure what it’s meant to do but possibly it’s for making omelets?  Who cares, it makes CAKE in like 5 minutes.  Good, moist cake!  The only drawback is the peculiar shape, which is easily remedied by splitting the cake and sitting the halves side by side.  Then you have adorable, 5 inch round layer cake.  As long as you remember to alternate where the splits in your layers are you have a pretty stable little tiered cake that looks totally normal from the outside.  

This was just an experiment so I didn’t want to waste a good, scratch recipe without knowing whether or not the omelet-baker-thing worked well.  So I used one cake mix, white, prepared to box directions.  Then I broke out the food dye and two bowls, dividing it equally in three containers.  Bowl one, red. Bowl two, blue. Mixing bowl, yellow. Used half the red, then put some yellow dye in to make bright orange, did the same with blue but added red coloring to make purple and again with yellow to which I added a drop of green color and blue to make an awesome lime green.  Ta-da, rainbow cake without too much mess.

I decided to make an Italian meringue for the icing, and though it does not need to be baked, I love that flavor and texture so much I had to do it.  

I love how dignified it looked until you slice it open and find all the crazy.  There is a layer of meringue in between each color.

Oh yeah, triple A+ awesome will totally bake again.  It only took about 30 minutes, total, to make this thing.  5 minutes for every two layers, since each layer is just one omelet-pocket’s worth.  The frosting is deceptively simple.  Meringue seems intimidating; I assure you it isn’t.  This was the egg whites of two huge eggs, 1/4c of water and 3/4c sugar with a tiny pinch of cream of tartar and salt.  I decided to add some of the natural lemon extract I found and it was amazing.  Start by putting your sugar and water into a small sauce pan and get it up to a boil.  You start whipping your egg whites, cream of tartar, pinch of salt on medium until they begin to show peaks.  By the time this happens, your syrup should be ready but you can make sure by dribbling a tiny amount into a cup of ice water.  It should make a soft little ball of goo.  If it just dissolves instantly, cook it longer.  You turn the mixer down to low and start very slowing dribbling your syrup down the side (don’t spill it over the beaters, hot syrup in the face is bad).  Turn the mixer up as you dribble, you should be at medium-high speed once all your syrup is in.  Whip that up until it’s cool and forming nice fluffy peaks.  Ta-da, Italian meringue.  If you choose to add flavoring, do it when it’s almost done whipping.  I loved the way the lemon tasted but want to try almond next time.

You do not have to bake your meringue, I did simply because I love it that way.  If you do not bake it you will have a gorgeous, snowy white cake.  The only drawback to this type of icing is that cakes seem to suck it up and it disappears like magic if you try to keep it too long.  Solution?  Eat the cake quickly.  I’m sure that wont be a problem.  Just look at it.