A Balanced Life: Cooking on a Budget: The Most Colorful Birthday Cake EVER

This three layer tie-dye Birthday Cake with homemade custard filling and chocolate frosting "takes the cake" for both the best looking and the best tasting birthday cake I have ever enjoyed. My husband made it for me, so please bare with me through some of the photos, etc. (Disclaimer: Initial idea did come from a box mix. However, this blog is about how to take that box mix and make it that much more awesome!)

Ingredients:

1 box (Tie tie cake OR white cake)

3 egg (or as box reads)

1/3 c oil (or as box reads)

food coloring

2 tbs white sugar

2 tbs molasses

1 tbs butter

frosting (or powered white sugar)

8 inch round cake pan (or smaller), or something close to this :)

Time:

2 hours total

I have to say, although my role was more supervision on this one-- Just watching this cake get made was a blast! Feel free to have fun with it, as there will never be another cake like it-- even if all your cakes are tie-dye from this day forth! A nice thing about this particular cake is that quickly getting the batter into the oven is not as important. So make sure to relax and enjoy the fun :)

Directions:

1) Make up the cake as instructed EXCEPT, do not include the yoke of the egg. An easy way to do this is to crack the egg without letting the inside of the egg fall into the bowl. Then, over a bowl, pass the egg yoke back and forth between the two shells until nearly all of the translucent "whites" of the egg are in the bowl, and the yoke is still in one of the shell halves. Set the yokes aside for now.

2) Preheat the oven to 350.

3) Divide the cake batter into 5 (or more) bowls.

4) Mix in food coloring to make intense colored batter. Go heavier rather than lighter on the food coloring. And feel free to get creative! The purple on the right was a good five minute project for my husband as he got it 'just right.'

5) Add about a third of all the batter colors to your greased 8 inch round pan. If you don't have an 8 nice round pan, a small crock pot dish also works well! (Featured above.) Make sure to pour in one place for each color, so that batter color can sink to the bottom of the cake.

6) Bake each round for 30 minutes. If you only have one pan, wait ten minutes before removing the baked cake layer from the pan.

7) Repeat 4 through 6 for the other two layers!

8) While you are making the layers of the cake, you can start on the filling: Take the three egg yokes, two tbs molasses, 2 tbs white sugar, and 1 tbs butter. If inclined, add a 1/4 tsp of orange extract as well. In a small double broiler, beat the custard mixture continuously over low heat. If you don't have a double broiler, then put the ingredients in a small metal mixing bowl, and the water (for the broiler) in a small pot. Balance the metal bowl in the small pot that is 1/3 filled with water. No mater what you use to this, mix continually!

9) Once all bake layers are baked and cooled, it's time to construct the cake. One whatever dish you will be serving the cake, place the first round. Add 1/2 of your custard mixture to the top. Then add your next round and repeat. After the last round is on top-- It's frosting time! You can use a pre made mix, (like I said my husband was doing this one), or you can make the frosting. As this is a budget friendly blog, I recommend making it. Just combine well 1/4 cup butter and 3 cups powdered sugar. Add coloring or flavorings of choice to that. Some butter frostings have milk, but I find the frosting is stiffer without it.