Tie-dyed cake

We had Amelia's birthday party this weekend, which I will post about tomorrow.  But today, the cake.  Because it was a glorious cake.  Almost more fun to make than to eat.  I can't take credit for it--I stumbled across it on a blog a couple of weeks ago, right down to using Skittles as decorations. But it was so much fun to see the kids' faces when we cut into it with all its rainbow glory.

Start out with a plain white cake mix (we used two) and a goofy six-year-old face. 

Color batter with concentrated gel food coloring.

Pour into 9" pans in concentric circles 
Leftovers for tie-dyed cupcakes
How pretty is that?  Makes doing the dishes not so bad.
I had leftover dipped candles from Madeline's birthday party last year (thanks Joanne!), but I only had five.  And Amelia is six.  So at the last minute (after the photos) we stuck in a plain white sixth candle for her to blow out.

  
Most of the kids thought they wanted cupcakes until I cut the first piece of cake.  Then they were hit by the rainbow explosion and the cake became far more popular.  

Kolby says they'll all be pooping rainbows today.  But girls do that anyway.  Rainbows and butterflies.