1, 2, 3, 4 Cake - American Cake - Plus Plus Plus

Unicorn Rainbow Crunch Cake.
Happy Birthday Ms. Chea

Someone had a birthday! It's her Birthday and on birthdays, at work, there is cake. She asked for an outrageous rainbowy cake. How can you say no to that face? There were donuts, plus got sung to a few times and even had original rap song written and performed for her, "Salad Bar Queen". Heaven help our school if there is ever a grown up people's talent show; I'd sign our group up in a minute. We wouldn't win, but we'd have fun; we always have fun.

The American Cake Book recipe isn't colorful, that's from some intense food coloring. Use paste or gel if you can, not liquid.  And I scaled the cake up by 1.5 to get my six colorful layers. I was looking for a good clean foundational cake and the 1, 2, 3, 4 Cake did the trick. I don't know if you can tell that the cake pan size is 6 inches, but it is. I just so happened to find the little cake stand at the thrift store a few weeks ago. Don't you love when that kind of thing happens?

ROYGBIV, minus the I 

The cake gets its name from 1 cup of butter, 2 cups sugar, 3 cups flour and 4 eggs. There's also 2.5 teaspoons of baking powder, 0.5 teaspoon salt, 1 cup milk and 1 teaspoon vanilla.

The trick is how you mix it. Cream the butter and sugar thoroughly, until it's fluffy. Add one egg at a time. In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Add 1/3 of that to the butter mixture. Then add half the milk, the second third of flour, the second half of milk and then the last third of flour. At the the end add the vanilla. Beat it well between additions.

Pour into prepared pans, bake at 350, until done, cool and decorate.

To make the Fruity Pebbles Crunch:
5 cups Fruity Pebbles, cereal
0.5 cup milk powder
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
9 tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat oven 275 degrees.

In a medium bowl toss the cereal with the milk powder, sugar and salt. Pour the butter over the top and squeeze it together with your hands to where you get little clumps. Pour onto a parchment lined sheet pan and bake for 20 minutes. Cool and store in an airtight container.

Frosting:
1 pound unsalted butter
2 pounds powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 tablespoons half and half

Cream the butter, then add the powdered sugar. To that add vanilla and half and half. Add additional liquid, if needed to make a softer frosting.

It was tall. I used chopsticks to keep it upright.

Oh, and how to transport this very silly cake? Carefully! I put it on the lid of a big food storage container and put the container upside down on the lid. It was assembled with the new pony, on the cake stand, after I got to work. 

Do you have food traditions at your job?