It just takes a tweet to get a company like General Mills to realize they’ve made a big mistake. Ok, the tweet has to come from Katy Perry and then be backed up by the frosting evangelist,Benjamin Johnson, who started a change.org campaign and got 7,000 Rainbow Chip Frosting fans to petition its return. Betty Crocker heard the call and is bringing back the well-missed confection, after removing it from the shelves 2 years ago. I got to be a part of this historic frosting moment. I was invited to a surprise party for Benjamin at the Betty Crocker test kitchen to celebrate his victory.
I didn’t grow up with this frosting, but Katy Perry and Benjamin did. (My folks were trying to pass off raisins as candy during those formative years.) However, based on the outcry for the frosting’s return, (people were actually paying hundreds of dollars for cans of it on ebay), I suspect many of you remember it too. Well, you’re in luck, Betty Crocker is bringing it back, but not until July. If you can’t wait until then, you can register for the Rainbow Chip Sweepstakes to be the first to have it. I got a few pre-release cans to play with, so I made a Rainbow Chip Cake!
Rainbow Chip Cake
White cake – I doubled the recipe so that I would have plenty of cake for the surprise inside the cake, but then I ended up having lots of extra for cupcakes.*
Food coloring (any color you want)
Frosting (Rainbow Chip or any of your choosing)
Make the white cake batter and put 1/4 of the batter in a separate bowl. Add a drop or two of the food color into this small portion of the batter.
I used a silicone sphere moldto bake small round cakes to put inside. Even though they are non-stick, you will need to butter and flour them to prevent them from sticking.
Or you can use small, oven proof bowls. I used these from Duralex. Be sure to butter the bowls very well or they will stick and you won’t have a clean ball. You want to fill them about 3/4 full, so they will dome.
Let the cakes cool and then remove from the molds or bowls. If they don’t slip out easily, you will want to use a thin knife to ease them out.
Place a thin layer of the white cake mix in a cake pan of your choosing. Place the round balls over the batter.
Fill the pan with enough batter to cover the balls. If the balls are very small, then you’ll want to fill the pan about 2/3 full.
Bake until a tester just comes out clean. The timing will depend on the size of the pan you used.
If there is any batter left over you can use it to make cupcakes.
Refrigerating the cake will be helpful, because it will firm up. To assemble the cake you’ll want to scrape off any crust off the top of the cake. I say scrape, because you don’t want to cut it or you’ll cut into the surprise inside. Once the top is scraped clean, then cut off a thin layer off the sides to reveal the white cake below. If you skip this step you will have the caramel colored crust show up when you slice the cake.
If you are layering the cake, use some white icing between them.
I used the Rainbow Chip Frosting, but this technique would be great with any icing. You can follow my instructions for crumb coating and icing a cake, so you don’t end up with cake crumbson the outside. I found the icing to be very soft. This makes it easy to spread, but when you are making a tall cake it wanted to droop off. I refrigerated the cake and the icing to get it to firm up a bit.
You can leave the cake smooth and sleek.
Or use the spatula to swipe the icing upwards to get some texture to the cake.
*The extra cupcakes are just as sweet and super easy.
When you cut into the Rainbow Chip Cake, it will reveal the surprise pink polka dots.
The good folks at Betty Crocker sponsored this Rainbow Chip Cake post, but all the words and work are mine.
