A classic vanilla bundt cake amped up into rainbow colored fun with a raspberry glaze and sprinkles! Perfect for St. Patrick’s Day or a party!
When December was rolling to a close, my husband and I were talking about what we want from life. I have been feeling a little like our lives have been in a bit of a rut. And so we decided to make 2016 about living our passions and teaching our children to go after what they want. Travel is one of our biggest passions, so we made a list of places we wanted to visit during 2016, and things we wanted to do.
Around Christmas time, we took a trip to Tennessee, and we were flying standby…very stupid thing to do during the holidays. We got stuck, unable to get on a flight back home. Anyway, my youngest son’s birthday is near the first of January, and he was very concerned we weren’t going to be back in time.
Well, long story short, we made it home the night before his birthday, but I had failed to shop for gifts, or plan anything for it since I had been stuck in a hotel room the whole week before.
So, in order to help him feel loved and appreciated the night before his birthday I called our family (we have a huge extended family), and invited them all over the next day for dinner and a party to celebrate. The thing was, I had to unpack, and clean my house, and buy gifts, and make this dinner. And well, I totally forgot about the cake.
So about an hour before the party he asked me what kind of cake he was getting. What?!!! The cake!! How could I have forgotten the cake? I mean he was turning 7 for goodness sake. Seven year olds NEED cake at their parties. So I told him he could pick whatever he wanted. Well, he had been looking through a cake book, and had seen a rainbow cake. And so that is what he wanted.
And so we made one! This cake was amazing, but if you need more really fun ideas for cakes, check out this post with 112 Birthday Cake Ideas! Or if you want to learn to be a better cake decorator, check out this Beginner’s guide to Cake Decorating.
It turned out a little more tie-dye than rainbow, but I thought it was really cute, and he was ridiculously happy about it. The fact that it wasn’t done cooling, and ready to be frosted until 10 pm, and most of his guests had already gone home was of little concern to him. So we sang happy birthday, pretended to light candles (another thing I totally forgot about), and cut the cake! He was thrilled with it, and I got mom points.
Anyway, I thought the cake was so fun, and would be perfect for something like St. Patrick’s Day. So here you go. You can start with a vanilla bundt cake, I included a recipe from I am Baker, as her cakes are always amazing. Or you can short cut it and buy 5 packages of different colored cake mixes, and just scoop out about 2 cups of each mix into your bundt pan. Use the leftovers to make cupcakes!
Rainbow Bundt Cake
Ingredients
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup butter softened
- 2 large eggs (room temp_
- 1 cup milk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsps baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- Blue food coloring
- Orange food coloring
- Purple food coloring
- Green food coloring
- Blue food coloring
Raspberry glaze
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 2 Tbs milk
- 2 Tbs Raspberry flavored syrup
- 1 tsp lemon juice
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Get eggs out so they can come to room temp
- Grease and flour a bundt pan.
- In a mixing bowl, beat together sugar, butter, and eggs until fully mixed. If using a stand mixer, use the whisk attachment
- Add milk & vanilla to the sugar mixture, and mix well.
- Add in flour, baking powder, salt, and mix until smooth, for about 1 minute
- Divide batter evenly into 5 bowls (about 1 1/2-2 cups per bowl), use the food coloring or food gels to color each bowl a different color. Adjust amount to achieve desired color.
- One at a time, pour mixture into prepared pan, layering it evenly.
- Bake 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.
- Using a butter knife, gently loosen the edges of the cake from the pan, and turn over onto a wire rack.
- Allow to cook completely.
- While cake is cooling, make raspberry glaze by mixing ingredients together with a hand mixer. Add additional milk to glaze if it is not runny enough. You want it to be thick enough that it holds shape, but runny enough that it will slowly drip off a spoon.
- When cake is cooled, spoon it over the top of the cake. It should hold the "drip" shape, and get a little hard. Add sprinkles if desired!
Notes
Nutrition
Our recipe card software calculates these nutrition facts based on averages for the above ingredients, different brands, and quality of produce/meats may have different nutritional information, always calculate your own based on the specific products you use in order to achieve accurate macros for this recipe.
Cathy Trochelman says
Oh my goodness – I’ve never seen a happier cake! My daughter is rainbow obsessed and would LOVE this!
Noris says
This is a beatifull cake
Rachael says
Thank you so much. It was a fun one to make.