We celebrated my baby"s toddler's birthday last month, and I have been meaning to post a little bit of the party, but the month got away from me, and now April is slipping away too, I wish time could just slow down a bit.
The week of O's birthday was a rather rough one for me, John left the day before Oscar's birthday for work and was gone that entire week. This was the first time he had been gone so long since Oscar had been born and we both O and I cried our eyes out as his truck backed out of our driveway, but we got thru it by keeping very busy and doing lots of snuggling at night until daddy returned home. I was also a little emotional because my little baby, was growing up into a walking, talking toddler and it is just going by too fast for my liking, I also was NOT looking forward to turning 31 that same week, but thank God for great friends and family who kept checking in with O and me, making sure that we were ok.
We had planned on having a small birthday brunch the weekend after O's birthday so that his daddy would be home to celebrate with us, but at the last minute I decided that I needed to do something special on the actual day, whether daddy was there or not. So I invited a few people over to enjoy some cake and ice cream with us. It was such a nice time spent with family and friends reminiscing and laughing, and Oscar and I really enjoyed having the company over to keep our minds off of how we were missing daddy like crazy.
He eats his cake just like his mommy...with both hand and as much in the mouth as possible.
Oscar got some great books to read. We love books in this house, they are the perfect gift... you can never have too many, they don't take up much space...and one of the greatest things in this world is snuggling up with my little guy and reading book, after book, after book, after book, after.....
Like I mentioned this little cake and ice cream party was pretty last minute so I didn't have much time to prepare, but I knew I wanted to make some kind of cake for O's big day.
I am sure you have seen the famous rainbow cake posted out on blog land. I created something similar last summer for an uncle's birthday party, and decided to do the same for Oscar's cake. While the rainbow cake is beautiful, and I am sure delicious, I don't have the time or energy to do THAT cake. So I improvised on mine a bit.....ok a lot....I used a box cake mix.
I did the same thing last year for my uncle's birthday cake, but I made his the entire rainbow. For O's cake I stuck to 4 colors. This tutorial will do any version of the cake, and I have added some side notes for the full rainbow cake.
For this cake I used a box mix and a can of frosting. I am sure you could use any cake mix that you prefer, but you want to make sure it is white so that your colors will be vibrant.
As far as frosting; you can use pretty much any color or flavor, but my personal favorite is good ol' butter cream.
* I used two cans of frosting for this cake, one for the layers and one to cover the outside.
* you can also use two boxes of cake mix to make the layers of your cake thicker, if you plan on doing a full rainbow cake I recommend this, but for my 4 layer cake one box worked out just fine. (if you plan on making the full rainbow cake (6 layers), you may need an extra can of frosting too, as I had just enough to cover my 4 layer cake.)
Prepare your cake according to package instructions, and then divide up the batter into individual bowls, one for each color you will be doing. ex: if you are making the full rainbow cake you will need 6 different bowls. The original rainbow cake blog post suggested that you use a scale to evenly divide your cake batter, but I didn't do this. I simply used a measuring cup and put one scoop of batter into each bowl one at a time (like I was dealing a deck of cards out) then when I came to the end of my batter I eye-balled the rest to even it out. I haven't had a problem doing it this way, but if you would like to make sure that all of your layers are exactly the same thickness, follow her instructions for dividing up the batter.
Once I had my batter divided up into individual bowls I used gel food coloring to get the colors I was looking for. I used the table cloth as a guide to my colors. I wish I wrote down exactly how many drops of each color I used for each color, but I didn't, I just kept adding until it looked right.
To get the blues more "vintage looking" (less bright) I added a small bit of red to the color.
To tone down the red, I added a bit of blue, and to mute the yellow down a little I added drops of blue and green.
If you are trying to get the same look with your colors, my advice is to take it slow. Mix the main color first, after you get the intensity of the color you are after, add very small drops of the other colors to tone it down, mixing after each drop of color. You would be surprised how quickly you can go from a vivid blue to icky brown if you add too many drops of red.
After all my colors were mixed,
I lined the bottom of round cake pans with parchment paper and made sure that the sides were greased so that I could easily get my layers out when they were done baking.
Then poured my colored batter into the cake pan (one pan for each color), then placed all 4 of my pans in the oven to bake. I used the box instructions for baking temp and time, but watched them very closely. The lighter colors were very close to the baking instructions on the box, but I did take the darker blue and red out a few minutes early since they baked up faster. Just use the instructions as a guide, and stay close by the kitchen during baking time, every one's oven is different, and depending on how thick your layers are or how dark your colors are, the baking times will vary.
When your layers are all done baking, you will need to let them cool before assembling your cake. I like to use a cookie sheets flipped upside down with a sheet of parchment paper on top for my cooling rack because I never have enough room and it works really well for me to move the layers around with out breaking them this way.
Line your cake plate with 3 to 4 pieces of parchment paper so that they are covering the plate itself, but are easily removed once you are done decorating the cake. (I like to use 3 strips of parchment paper about 2 to 4 inches wide and I lay them across the outer side of the cake plate, leaving a large triangle where the cake will go)
Lay your first layer down on the cake plate and add a thin layer of frosting across the top.
You can really go easy on the frosting here, just a little to act as a glue for the next layer, too much frosting and your layers will slide off each other.
Continue doing this layer by layer, once I have the inside of my cake assembled, I like to add a thin layer of frosting all over the outside of my cake. At this point all my frosting is soft and more likely to move around, so I then place it in the fridge for a few hours to "set a little".
When my cake frosting has "set" and is easier to work with, I simply add more frosting to the outside working from the top of the cake to the sides until it is evenly covered.
Add any type of sprinkles, jimmies or candies to the outside that you would like, or just leave it plain, what ever your little heart desires.
I personally like to use sugar sprinkles on my cake. I love the little crunchy bites they give to a very smooth cake, and everyone at the party must of agreed because there was not a crumb left on any one's plate.
I had a entire file saved up of birthday ideas for Oscar's first birthday, but didn't do any of them. I wanted to have a big party, have favor bags, send out great invitations and make a big deal out of the whole thing, but I am so happy that those plans didn't work out and instead we had a laid back simple party. I was under no stress and was able just to sit back and soak in the entire day. When Oscar is older, I will be able to tell him exactly what we did on his first birthday and who was all there.
When John got back we had the Grandparents over for breakfast and lunch but I was too busy enjoying the day with my husband, family and Oscar that I completely forgot to take pictures. Sorry.
