Food Photography can be absolutely fun!

For Valentine's Day this year, I decided to do something different! Inspired by a friend's photo of a very unique cake, I decided to give it a try myself! A couple of weeks ago when I saw the picture, I was very curious to find out what it was. I had never seen anything like it before. Now I don't bake very often, in fact a week before this was the 1st time I'd successfully baked a cake for a birthday, so taking on something of this sort felt like a good challenge. I also wanted to bake it mainly so I can get some awesome pics!
You must be wondering what I'm talking about. One of the most colorful of cakes, the Rainbow Cake. This is what I ended up making!

Ingredients:
1 pack Pillsbury Moist Supreme Cake Mix, Classic White, 18.25 oz
1 pack Betty Crocker, Food Color Gel, 2.72-Ounce
Eggs (# on box)
Oil (amount on box)
2 Chicago Metallic Professional Nonstick 9-Inch Round Cake Pan
1 Baker's Joy No-Stick Spray w/Flour: 5 OZ
Camera for loads of fun! I use this but any will do!

You can get as creative as you'd like. I did it a certain way and if I make it again, I'd definitely try something different!

The Dirty Work:

What it looks like after adding color

1. Make the batter as you would normally for a white cake (adding everything on the back of the box- oil, water, eggs and whisking it (or using a fancy machine that I don't have).
 

Some more spiffy photography

2. Once the batter is nicely mixed, separate into bowls (however many colors you want to make) Then add food coloring to each and mix. A couple of color combinations to use:

Red + Yellow = Orange
Red + Blue = Purple
This is what is should look like now.

3. Now its time to pour it into the pans. **Don't forget to grease the pans... In all the excitement, I  forgot to do so and it was pain to get them out! lol**

Pouring the batter was fun, but make sure to do it quick!

The best way to get a nice design is to pour one color at a time in the middle of the pan, that way as you add another layer, the one below spreads out.

The batter gets a bit thick (mine was quite thick coz I was taking tons of pictures) and I had to shake the pan to make sure it reached the edges!

It looks very vibrant before going in the ove

TIP: Since the lowest color does not seem to be visible, I flipped the color order in the 2nd pan (so if red was at bottom on one, it was the topmost color in the other. That's what gives it a cool rainbow effect when putting the two layers together!
Pour half of each color into the first pan, one at a time in the center (look at my picture)


I baked for about 28 mins (again, follow instructions on box) put a toothpick and make sure nothing sticks!
The colors on the outside of the cake were quite dark, and I was very disappointed, but the insides stay nice and vibrant! I was not sure of this till after we cut it...



Once done, let it cool for a while and frost however you want! this is what I did with it, since it was for Valentine's Day.

Let me know if I left anything out... I'm no professional baker and this was only my 2nd attempt at baking so I might not know all the correct terms!

Have fun with it.. and lemme know how it turns out!

Enjoy the remaining pictures, and feel free to share this delicious cake recipe around! I thought I was the only one who didn't know about this cake, but there seems to be a whole lot who had never seen something like this!