The smiley, happy, silly rainbows on this cake are totally inspired by those amazing frosting covered sugar cookies you get at the bakery. Or at least, at the grocery store bakery that I would frequent in my youth.

Those cookies were the only thing that made shopping trips tolerable for my mother when I was young. The promise of just one of those delectable cookies was enough to exhilarate my senses and make me… well… behave.

Its funny how sugar still triggers that emotional response in me today!

Anywho… here are some over the top, crazy, supposed to make your heart happy rainbows.

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All of those rainbows are pure sugar highs… courtesy of my favorite buttercream recipe of all time.

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Since this is a St. Patrick’s Day cake I actually made hundreds of gold coins for the base of the rainbows. I just made my homemade sprinkles, only bigger. But since I made them bigger they were taking forever to dry and I got impatient.

Hence, fluffy frosting clouds.

Next year I will plan better.

I mean, I probably wont, but I can pretend.

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And then, because it seems to be physically impossible for me to make a cake without a surprise inside, I decided to add a shamrock.

Seriously… I made so many impulsive choices on this cake! I dont know what I was thinking.

Like instead of a bright green jolly shamrock, mine is really, really dark. I thought it would be a fun to make Nigella’s Guiness chocolate cake (beer… St. Patrick’s Day… it seemed like a good idea) and then just add a little bit of green so it wouldn’t be IN YOUR FACE green.

Like with this St. Patty’s Day cake.

I will show you what I mean.

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Its dark.

And mostly resembles a shamrock.

At least it tastes fantastic!! (white cake recipe here)

This was one TOUGH cake. I really dont think a tutorial is possible because I need a full year to forget how much work it was.

Sorta like having a baby. Which I will be doing in 17 days. (scheduled C-Section)

TMI for a baking blog???

Sorry. 🙂

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Meet Amanda Rettke

Amanda Rettke is the creator of I Am Baker, and the bestselling author of Surprise Inside Cakes: Amazing Cakes for Every Occasion – With a Little Something Extra Inside.Over the course of her 15+ year blogging adventure, she has been featured in and collaborated with the Food Network, New York Times, LA Times, Country Living Magazine, People Magazine, Epicurious, Brides, Romantic Homes, life:beautiful, Publishers Weekly, The Daily Mail, Star Tribune, The Globe and Mail, DailyCandy, YumSugar, The Knot, The Kitchn, and Parade, to name a few.

Reader Comments

  1. WOWWWWW!!! I mean WWWOOOOWWWWW !!!
    I was thinking and thinking and thinking about doing something similar and finaly gave up because I didn’t know how to make the samrocks. Your cake is great and it looks great as a samrock inside too. And the outside… Is so colourful and beautiful !!!
    The only idea I had at last is to make some kind of leprechaun hat cake, inside and outside.
    http://tartasconmagia.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/tarta-sombrero-de-duende-irlandes-leprechaun-hat-cake/
    It is in spanish, but I think photos are enough some times.
    I must thank you and thank you and THANK YOU again for your great blog and tutorials. It is because of you that I have this “puzzle cake” fever. I can’t think of another thing. 😉
    XOXO

  2. 17 days! Holy moly! If you do this again next year, maybe you should make red velvet cake for the shamrock, but use green dye instead. (I can’t take credit for that idea, my friend Annie did it on With Sprinkles on Top). And I totally would have just used chocolate coins for the base. It’s a beautiful cake, Amanda. When I was a kid, I drew rainbows all the time. I loved them so much. (I secretly still do!)

  3. 17 days! Holy moly! If you do this again next year, maybe you should make red velvet cake for the shamrock, but use green dye instead. (I can’t take credit for that idea, my friend Annie did it on With Sprinkles on Top). And I totally would have just used chocolate coins for the base. It’s a beautiful cake, Amanda. When I was a kid, I drew rainbows all the time. I loved them so much. (I secretly still do!)

  4. 17 days! Holy moly! If you do this again next year, maybe you should make red velvet cake for the shamrock, but use green dye instead. (I can’t take credit for that idea, my friend Annie did it on With Sprinkles on Top). And I totally would have just used chocolate coins for the base. It’s a beautiful cake, Amanda. When I was a kid, I drew rainbows all the time. I loved them so much. (I secretly still do!)

  5. 17 days! Holy moly! If you do this again next year, maybe you should make red velvet cake for the shamrock, but use green dye instead. (I can’t take credit for that idea, my friend Annie did it on With Sprinkles on Top). And I totally would have just used chocolate coins for the base. It’s a beautiful cake, Amanda. When I was a kid, I drew rainbows all the time. I loved them so much. (I secretly still do!)

  6. Wow! That looks like a LOT of work – but well worth the effort!! Another great blog post Amanda : )

  7. Absolutely amazing! It’s so beautiful, Amanda!!!
    I don’t know how you come up with these things… Wow!

  8. This cake looks amazing! I top my hat to you for making such a difficult cake when you are so close to giving birth. I remember when I was that far along and all I wanted to do was complain about how big I was!

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