Rainbow Decorated Cake

Start by making the chocolate rainbow topper using chocolate candy melts. You will need a plastic chocolate rainbow mold and 7 different colors of chocolate candy melts. We used pink, red, yellow, orange, green, blue, and purple. You can divide your candy melt colors into tipless piping bags and microwave them for 20 seconds inside of the bags. Make sure to knead the bags to evenly distribute the heated chocolate. Microwave the bags for another 20 seconds and knead the chocolate. If there are still unmelted chocolate pieces repeat this process with 10 second intervals until all of the chocolate is completely melted. Make sure not to overheat the chocolate as it will become thick and hard to pipe. If the candy melts are too hot, allow them to cool for 5-10 minutes before starting the next step.

Starting with the pink, pipe the chocolate into the first cavity of the mold on both rainbows. Use the tip of the piping bag, or a scribe tool, to guide the chocolate into place if needed. Continue with the rest of the rainbow using the remaining colors one section at a time, ending with the purple. Fill in the cloud area with bright white candy melts. Then, Fill in the whole rainbow with the white candy melts, covering all of the rainbow colors. Once this is done, place the chocolate mold in the refrigerator for 20-25 minutes to allow the chocolate to set up completely. Once they are set, invert the mold over your work surface to remove them from the mold. Set them aside while you decorate the cake.

You should start with a cake that is at least 5 inches tall for this design to fit all of the colors pictured. Start by coloring all of your frosting with the gel food paste colors and adding them to piping bags fit with the piping tip number 18. Attach the cake to a round board then pipe a vertical line of each color down your cake to evenly space the colors. This will act as your guide when filling in the rest of the cake. Pipe the first row of rosettes at the bottom of the cake. Make sure to apply even pressure and take your time so that each rosette is the same size. To pipe a rosette, make your starting point the center then begin applying pressure. Allow the buttercream to form a large star then circle around the star points making sure to cover the edges of the star. Continue these steps with the rest of the colors until you have pipped the last pink rosette.

To fill in the top of the cake start with the pink buttercream and pipe a shell border around the outside edge, make sure to cover any gaps at the edge of the cake. Continue these steps with the remaining colors of the rainbow until the top of the cake is completely filled. When you get to your last color fill in the rest of the cake with that color. To attach the rainbow to the top of the cake make sure you have some stiff, white buttercream ready to go. Pipe small white dollops of buttercream where you want the rainbow to sit on top of the cake. Place the clouds of the chocolate rainbow into the piped white icing. Continue to pipe white dollops around the base of the rainbow to make it more secure on the cake. Add a toothpick or sucker stick to the back of the rainbow to hold the rainbow in place while the buttercream sets. Remove the toothpicks before serving and enjoy the cake within 3-5 days.