DIY Tie-dye birthday cake

I do love to make birthday cakes for all the people in my life. I used to devote hours to dreaming up birthday cake ideas for my son’s birthday parties. But sometime life gets in the way, and sometime you forget. I know, it’s terrible, but I kind forgot it was my husband’s birthday this week. So what to do? My inspiration was a beautiful cake that my sister made for me for my birthday. It was a beautiful tie-dye cake made from a mix. But I didn’t have a mix.

Here’s what I came up with! Shh, don’t tell but I always keep staples in my cupboards, for emergencies. This was a quick way to make a cake seem a bit special – the surprise is that the cake tastes amazing – I think it’s the visual treat from the colours. Regardless, you can do this anytime. The only thing to consider is that there is an extra step that includes messing up 6 bowls and spoons, but the final product is worth the extra dishes!

First, I started with basic staples – Thank you #Duncan Hines – white cake mix and vanilla icing. Add some yellow, red, green and blue food colour.  Really, it’s foolproof.

Then mix your colours – here is a guideline of what I used:

• Yellow – 6 drops
• Red – 6 drops
• Blue – 6 drops
• Green – 6 drops
• Orange – 4 yellow and 2 red drops
• Purple – 4 blue and 2 red drops

And adjust as you wish – sometimes it helps to add in one or two extra drops to get the colour you want.

I used a bunt/flute pan for mine, so I just layered each colour (no mixing, just a little jiggle to keep things moving.

And then, into the oven.

Ok, I was hoping it would rise a bit more – that may have to do with the dye. Next time I will either use a food colouring paste or put a bit less liquid in my cake batter before mixing (about 4 tablespoons less).

But once I put icing on, it didn’t look too bad.  Here it is – quick and fancy looking – and quite tasty!!!  DH loved it!