Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Rainbows Everywhere!

The past couple of weeks I have been making cakes to be used as props for a production of  "The Boys In The Band" that ran at Out Front On Main Theater in Murfreesboro. The play is based in 1968 and is a story of a group of gay guys getting together to celebrate a birthday, hence the cake prop. They have to actually cut and eat it on set. The play is quite popular, and still relevant today in some regards. If you ever get a chance to see it, you should. It brings a new perspective to what it must have been like to be gay in 1968.

 Well, I didn't really go over the top with any of the cakes, but I provided them with some tasty ones. I actually came up with a couple of delicious creations quite by accident. I will share those later. I didn't bother taking photos of most of them, so when I recreate the Coconut Cake using coconut water in the cake mix instead of water, I will post that too. I also did a vanilla cake with a white chocolate ganache that I hear was fabulous. If  I can remember exactly what I did, I will share that too. I really regret not taking pics of most of these. I didn't decorate them, that's not really my thing, taste is most important. If a cake tastes good for an informal affair, such as this, that is beautiful enough all it's own.

The exception to this is the rainbow cake I created for the boys for Saturday's show. It was Pride Fest Day in Nashville that day, and the Out Front team, along with some of the cast, were there to promote the theater.  It is blazing hot in Nashville this time of year, and I knew they would be wiped out after spending the day in the heat, then doing a show that night, to what turned out to be a huge crowd.The cast did not know what kind of cake was lurking under that white cream cheese frosting. It was pretty tall and kinda cute and festive, was all they knew. When Bernard cut into the birthday cake during the play, the rainbow was released! It was quite a sight to see the guys stay in character while doing double takes at the cake. It was a nice touch, and my little tribute to them in honor of Pride and a successful run.
I didn't really do anything special to make the cake. I just used two boxes of white cake mix and made three 9 inch layers out of each box. I separated the batter into three bowls and added food coloring to each one to obtain the desired color. Be careful not to over cook the layers. It takes less time since the layers are thinner.









I used almost three batches of cream cheese frosting made with an 8 oz pack of cream cheese, a stick of butter, and about three cups of confectioners sugar in each! It was a very heavy cake! All in all, it was a success, and a complete joy to make. I will probably do another one someday, just not real soon. There aren't many occasions when a six layer cake is called for that I run  across in my day to day life, but Pride Day is most definitely one of them. Everything is over the top, and rainbow filled, so it blended in just perfectly!