Adventures in Baking

My baby is turning 1 (gasp!) in just 3 days! To celebrate the occasion, he will get to dig into not only 1...but 2 cakes this coming weekend. His 1 year photo shoot is on Saturday morning and one of the things we are doing is smash cake pictures. I am so excited I can barely contain myself. I can't wait to see all the crumbly cake and frosting cuteness that he comes up with! After all the birthday celebrations this past weekend, I now have NO doubt that my child will dig right into that cake and make all my photo dreams a reality!!! To make things even more bright and colorful, I decided that just a regular 'ole cake wouldn't do. I had to bake a rainbow cake instead. Here are some shots of how that went...

Adding in the food coloring to the cake mix.  Using the gel colors since I heard that gives a deeper color.

Don't they look so pretty?

Now to dump them in colorful randomness into the pan.

Even the dirty dishes are pretty!  (I just couldn't resist taking this shot)

Rising to perfection in the oven...

Baked to perfection and cooling on the countertop.

I am not sure if I didn't let it cool long enough, or if the non-stick spray actual made it stick to the pan, but I lost the bottom quarter when I tried to tip the cake out of the pan.  Oh well, at least I know how cool it is going to look when he smashes it all up :)

When we went grocery shopping on Sunday morning, I bought 6 extra cake mixes, just in case I had to make a few more attempts at baking this cake and getting it out of the mold in one piece.  My husband looked at me like I was crazy, but then again...he does seem to do that alot lately...huh, maybe I am crazy?!  Oh well...another problem for another day.  Back to the topic at hand.

I am happy to say that my second attempt mostly stayed together.  This time I let the cake cool for 4 hours while we went to yet another birthday party (the 4th one of the weekend).  he bottom of the cupcake was a tad bit choppy, but I think I can cut that part off and still make it work.  However the outside doesn't look as good as the first one because I think I left the cake in the oven for just a bit too long.  So I an not sure if I will use that cake for the pictures or if I will make one more attempt (the 3rd time has to be the charm right ?!?) and just save it for the smash cake at his party.  At least then it won't go to waste.  Hmmmm..decisions, decisions.  I guess you'll just have to wait and see what I decide.