Rainbow Cake Attempt!

Those of you who use Pinterest are fully aware of the wide variety of things you can find on there. Everything from books to clothes to cooking ideas. Well, a few weeks ago, I came across a recipe for a rainbow cake that I was interested in making for L's birthday (which was this past Sunday). He's a bit of a superhero freak, and this cake is supposed to be reminiscent of a superhero cake, hence the reason it caught my eye. Since I've been in my cooking mode the past few months, I accepted the challenge. When I looked at the website, I thought the recipe seemed pretty do-able. The only thing I did differently was make the cake using the "normal" instructions instead of the "diet" instructions. Now, you can do what you want, but I personally recommend clicking here before (or while) looking at the pictures I posted below so you can see the original cake and how the process is supposed to go. Maybe even keep the site side-by-side with my blog so you can compare. You'll notice that throughout most of my process, everything turned out almost perfectly. That is, until the very end. Dun, dun, dun....

The mix! (2 boxes white cake mix)

Separate mix evenly into six bowls.
(Excuse my non-matching bowls;).

Dye the mix with gel food colors. How fun!
(Mine weren't quite as vibrant as the recipe showed, perhaps because I didn't use the entire tubes of food coloring. Either way, I still think they turned out nicely!)

Pour red, orange, and yellow mix into the first pan...

And purple, blue, and green in the second pan...

Top each pan with the remaining colors. So far, looking awesome!
I still can't believe I did this!

FAST FORWARD....
(Cook the cake according to the instructions.)

I forgot to take a photo of the two cakes once they were cooked, but the below photo illustrates what they should have looked like. Mine were quite a bit "puffier" than this picture shows (I'm talking over the top of the pans), but overall, I was still pretty successful. Oh, and I had to cook them much longer than the box instructed. The mix was runny for a lot longer than I expected, but eventually the toothpick came out clean! :)

After putting the two cakes together and frosting them, the above photo shows what the ideal finished product SHOULD look like. Should being the key word. Aren't those slices awesome?! Anyway, this is where my cooking project took a miserable turn. See the photo below to illustrate my point...

Seriously, after ALL that work, the two cakes essentially crumbled when I took them out of their pans. I'm not sure why, but they were just so soft that even placing them on top of one another caused much of it to crumble. The disaster you see above is after I also attempted to frost some of it. (I did not make my frosting, which, for the record, had nothing to do with what happened.) Anyway, this is about as far as I got before giving up. I wrapped the plate in foil and still took the cake up to La Crosse for L's birthday. Thankfully, he was incredibly appreciative of the gesture and didn't so much mind that it ended up looking like a horrible disaster. I made sure to show him these pictures to prove the labor of love that went into it. ;) Not gonna lie, I'm still quite bummed that after being so spot on through the whole process that it turned out like this, but what can ya do. Perhaps next time I will try the diet recipe to see if it makes a difference on how the cake sticks together. Either way, I'm proud of myself. A few months ago, I never would've even attempted this! And it least it still tasted delicious. :)