Hello friends, I hope you are faring well in this sweltering heat wave.  Today’s post is about a birthday cake I prepared for a co-worker’s daughter’s 4th birthday.  She was having a rainbow themed party and we must have both been on the same wavelength because we both knew if I was going to make a cake, there was only one it could be.

The Rainbow-Doodle Birthday Cake created by Rosie Alyea over at Sweetapolita.  The inspiration cake was a six layer creation covered in fondant and decorated by her daughter using food coloring markers.  My co-worker asked if I could not only make the cake, but replicate the doodling of a 4-year-old.  I should also mention at this point that until this request came in, I have been avoiding using fondant like the plague.  I’m not going to lie, it scared me.  I had fears of it breaking at the edge, falling, dragging, condensation, and the horrors I heard about the taste had me uneasy.  Not to mention that I was apprehensive about the effect the weather was going to have on the cake because the party was outside.  In June.  But, how could I disappoint a little kid, so I forged ahead and was up for the challenge!

Using Sweetapolita’s cake for inspiration, I created a 6 layer ROY G BV (no “I”) from my favorite butter cake recipe coloring it with AmeriColor Electric Ultra Bright Colors and covered it in fluffy homemade buttercream.

Then I mentally prepared myself to win the battle of the fondant.  Thankfully, I did enough research online to try Satin Ice in White/Vanilla.  Wow, what a product!  Not only was the taste on par with a vanilla Tootsie Roll, the texture was amazing and with minimal effort I had it rolled out to a 25″ circle, had it onto the cake and smoothed out in a matter of minutes.   I was totally surprised at the ease of it.  However, I am not going to lie- I watched hours of online video and did have to psych myself into it.

Once the fondant was on, the fun started!  Using Americolor Food Color Markers, I used the final Sweetapolita image as a guide for the top of the cake.

Since I wasn’t able to see all the sides, I created some of my own doodles and even drew a little girl holding a birthday balloon.  I also left a space at the top for the birthday girl to write in her own name.