Today’s project (well, one of them).

This is a pre-baked view of my rainbow cake. It starts with a basic vanilla cake, which you then divide into separate bowls and color with food dye. And then you glob it all together into something that looks like Ian painted it.

By the way, this is a really big pan. It is known in the industry as a “half-sheet”.  (The 9×13″ pans most people have in their kitchen are known as “quarter-sheet” pans.) My friend Beth requested a cake for her kids’ party, to serve 30 people. So I used that excuse to buy myself a real, commercial grade half-sheet. (A full sheet pan would not have fit in my oven.) And it’s great! Except… it’s a little hard to handle, and I realized once the rainbow cake was in the oven that I did not have a cooling rack large enough to hold it! But I made do. Of course, if anyone feels the urge to contribute to my baking efforts, I’d love to have one of these: http://www.amazon.com/CIA-23304-Masters-Collection-Cooling/dp/B000OFND8W/ref=sr_1_1?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1287719676&sr=1-1

This cake also allowed me to try out a little tip I learned – if you look closely at the picture, you can see a couple metal spikes sticking up through the cake. They are flower nails, turned upside down. (don’t use the plastic kind, obviously) They help the cake bake more evenly, avoiding the domed center that is so common to baking.

The rainbow cake is currently hiding from Ian, waiting to be carved into it’s final form tomorrow. Wait and see!