With St. Patrick’s Day coming up this Sunday, we started to wonder if there were any St. Patty’s recipes or crafts we could call shenanigans on. Of course you can always go crazy with food coloring and make green cookies, green cupcakes, etc. but we were looking for something more involved. Then we found this little gem: a rainbow cake!! The original pin used colored fondant to make a rainbow on a sideways cake! We didn’t want to go through all the hassle of working with fondant, so we put on our thinking caps and figured out a way to alter this cake into an easier recipe. Then it came to us- we could use M&Ms! Here’s how our St Patrick’s Day cake turned out compared to the original.
Our Version
Although our cake isn’t as clean cut and professional as the fondant cake, we think it’s pretty cute! We also like how it relates to St. Patrick Day, but could really be used any time of year if you need a pick-me-up! Here’s how we did it:
First we gathered our ingredients. You’ll need a box of cake mix, white icing, mini M&Ms and some food coloring.
Bake the cake according to the package direction in a circle pan. We actually only used half the cake mix because we wanted to use the rest for other shenanigans (get excited!), but you can certainly use the whole thing! Your cake will just be thicker than ours. After the cake is cool, cut each circle in half.
Ice the top of one of the half-circles of the cake with white icing. Now you’ll start the rainbow! Starting from the outer rim of the cake, we put two rows of each color M&M until our rainbow was complete. This was actually the most annoying part of making the cake because we wanted to flip all the M&Ms so that the Ms weren’t showing.
Although we stuck with traditional rainbow order, you could definitely get creative.
Now stack the layers of cake on top of each other by spreading icing between each layer of cake. (We used chocolate- yum!)
Next we dyed some of the white icing green (you know how we love being festive). Stand the cake up on its side and ice the curve of the cake with the green icing.
You’re all done! We really love this cake because it’s so cheerful! Also we think it would be a good recipe to make with kids since they could help with the M&Ms. Overall we were very pleased with this recipe- it wasn’t quite as professional as the original fondant cake, but it definitely makes an adorable statement! (We also want to give a shout out to Kristen’s cousin for helping us out… Thanks Leanne!)
So we revoke shenanigans on this festive St. Paddy’s Day cake (at least on our m&m version). If you try our version or the original Pinterest recipe, please let us know how it turns out!
Check out some of our other shenanigans: Carmel Pecan Pie, Mini Strawberry Cheesecake, Edible Glitter Recipe
That is a great way to have little ones help with sorting the colors and work on counting! Colorful fun for any age! Love it!
That’s such a good point! It’s a perfect St. Patricks day craft for kids.
This is really cute! I love the use of the M&M’s! Would go perfect at the Rainbows and Unicorns Theme Party I just posted about! 🙂 http://greendoorhospitality.wordpress.com/2013/03/13/this-party-calls-for-a-theme-its-all-rainbows-and-unicorns/
Kenley
For sure! That is so cute, love the cookies!
This is amazing!! Such a great idea! I’m going to try it this weekend. 🙂 – Leah
Thanks! If you do be sure to share it with us on our facebook page 🙂 https://www.facebook.com/WereCallingShenanigans
Love!!
Thanks! It was really fun to make 🙂
Yes! Yes! Yes! I would never attempt the fondant version (because I am incapable of that level of talent), but M&Ms –my girl’s would love to try that. To make it even simpler I might just keep the cake to one half, and keep it down flat, and use the other half of the cake to take to a friend or neighbor and ding-dong-ditch with a note from a leprechaun 🙂
Your site looks fun!
Haha, that’s a great idea! And thanks! 🙂 If you try it be sure to post how it turns out on our facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/WereCallingShenanigans