Paisley Confetti Cake

This cake was a bit of an experiment. A bit of a failed experiment. The experimental part was adding Wilton's White White Icing Color to cake batter to turn my off-white cake into a white cake. The point of experimenting is to learn something, though, right? Well, I learned that that product is definitely not for cake batter. It works great in buttercream icing, which is its intended use.

The reason I wanted my cake to be very white was because I wanted to make a homemade version of Rainbow Bits/Funfetti cake mix. White cake + sprinkles = rainbow confetti, right? Well, you can see how that turned out...

See, this is the problem with experimenting with two factors: When something goes wrong, you're not sure which is to blame. As you can see above, the cake did not come clean out of the pan (even though I used Wilton's Cake Release, which is pure magic and has never let me down) and looks a bit like a big Rice Krispie treat. And now I can't be sure what the problem was. I suspect the sprinkles are more to blame, though, as I used the White White Icing Color in another cake and it did not have the massive air bubbles or stick to the pan (as much). So, perhaps adding sprinkles is not a viable option for confetti cake. 

And the problem with the White White Icing Color? It gave the cake a very strange texture. It's hard to see in the photos, but it's just a bit... off. The word "spongy" comes to mind. In a bad way. I think it also made it taste a little off, too. I used a lot.

This cake was for a class and I didn't have time to make another, so I had to use it despite it being a horrible example to show my class! In class, I do a simple icing job to show the students. Sometimes I leave my class cakes in the break room for my coworkers to devour, sometimes my friend, Kelsey, claims a cake for herself, but this time I decided to take my cake home to have some fun decorating.

I found this pretty paisley pattern on Pinterest and decided to practice my piping skills and just free hand copy the pattern. It's not my most proud work, but I had fun just piping freehand, without any planning (which I always do for cake orders, but this was just for fun) other than looking at the pattern. If I was doing a detailed pattern like this for a cake order, I would do at least the basic shapes in fondant, and then pipe the details so it would look a lot neater. Again, with the experimenting and learning!

Despite my experimental additions to the batter and my quick decorating job, when I did take the cake to work to share, I heard it was delicious and pretty. (Even though it slid against the side of the cake caddy on the way there.)