Retro Tie-dye Cake

I made this colorful cake for a recent family birthday. 

Retro Tie-dye Cake Tips

This is more of a flexible cake idea than a recipe...here is what I used for this cake: 

• 3 layers of baked colorful cake {I made 8" rounds}
• Frosting to fill and frost the cake--I used this White Frosting recipe
• Fondant colored several bright colors {you can buy prepared fondant or make Marshmallow Fondant--I used about half a batch of that recipe}

The outside of the cake is colorful, but I really love the inside, too!

It was fun to make all those beautiful colors!  I mixed up a white boxed cake mix, divided the batter into three small bowls, and stirred in three bright food colors (I used Wilton gel colors--purple, red, and yellow in this cake).  Then, I divided the batter into two prepared pans and swirled it gently with a butter knife. 

The cake got baked as usual, cooled, and then I froze the layers.  {Because I wanted 3 layers I repeated this process with another cake mix and different colors.}  I always try to make the cake for birthday cakes ahead of time.  Frozen cake layers frost easily and making them ahead of time cuts down the prep-work for the actual busy day. 

On the birthday I mixed up the frosting and set it aside.  I pulled the cakes out of the freezer, trimmed the rounded tops off, and put the trimmings back into the freezer to save for another day.  Then, I filled and frosted the three layers with white frosting. 

I divided the fondant and colored it with 5 or 6 different colors and kneaded it until smooth.  I combined small amounts of different colors of fondant and rolled them together to get the random colors.  I used a large flower shaped cookie cutter to cut out shapes from the flattened fondant.  These got placed on top of the frosted cake. 

I got my kids to help me roll small marble-sized fondant balls from the colorful scraps of fondant.  These edged the bottom of the cake.

It was a very Happy Birthday!

I love these colorful candle flames!