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I like my Dala horse shaped cake pan but given the limited space in my kitchen, I wanted it to make more than horse cakes. When I saw this tie-dye cake mix from the coolest and most talented cake baker in the history of ever, it came to me to use it to make a rainbow unicorn birthday cake. (Disclosure: I am including some big bold affiliate links in this post for your convenience.)
Yea, yea I know. I usually bake cakes from scratch but in this case, it is a dairy free cake mix with vibrant colors I can only get if I buy an army of cake coloring gels like these. I really wanted to focus on turning the horse shaped cake into a unicorn using licorice laces like these for the tail and a twist lollipop like this one for the horn.
Not to mention, I would really be nice to be able to eat a food allergy friendly cake at a birthday party – something I don’t get to do even on my own birthday. *sad face*
I didn’t grease the cake pan evenly enough with cooking oil and flour (to keep it dairy free) when I baked both layers of the cake. Generally you can use cake frosting as “glue” to save cracked birthday cake and stick the broken pieces together. After the frosting as glue hardens a bit, you can frost and decorate the cake and no one will ever know. I’ve done it more often than I care to admit.
Unless, you try to stick broken pieces of cake together when the cake is still a little warm and not 100% cool. Then you might end up with a cake wreck that looks like this:
Did I mention the party was the next day and at this point I didn’t have time to bake and decorate a new tie dye cake?
But I promised rainbow and by golly rainbows they shall have! Time to turn this pile of broken but still yummy (I checked) birthday cake into GIANT rainbow cake balls!
Tie Dye Cake Mix (or the cake flavor of your choice)
White cake frosting – if you’d rather buy than DIY frosting, try this one
Paper lollipop sticks
Rainbow Lollipop
Gold sprinkles for cake decorating
White candy melts – or the color of your choice
Rainbow stickers – these are the exact rainbow stickers I used
Double boiler – I used a glass bowl sitting on a pot of water.
Optional but extremely helpful and recommended:
Sphere cupcake mold
Wilton Ultimate 3-In-1 Cupcake Caddy and Carrier like this one - it took me forever to find a reusable carrier that can hold round, rectangle, and shaped cakes. I splurged on this one because it has an insert that can carry 2 different size cupcake or cake balls and I have not regretted it one little bit.
1. I highly recommend using the tie dye cake mix to make cupcakes using the sphere cupcake molds. This way you will very nice and vibrate color layers. You will also use less frosting “gluing” the two sphere halves together than the method I used,
2. If you don’t have a ball cake pan, bake the rainbow cake according to the directions, let it cool completely, and carefully crumble/chunk the cake with just enough cake icing n a mixing bowl so you can form the mixture into a series of ball shapes.
The purple layer made the cake balls look a little weird. Next time I use this tie dye cake mix I'll probably skip using the purple coloring but that’s just me.
Try not to handle/mix the broken cake too much or the colored layers will start to mix and look more brown than rainbow.
I made my cake balls about the size of a baseball/cupcake. Yes it will turn out to be a glorious sugar bomb but birthdays only come one a year and I wanted some kind of win at this point.
3. Place a lollipop stick in the center of each cake ball. Let the cake balls sit a bit so the frosting hardens a bit which will make Step 4 easier. This is also why I recommend using a covered cupcake caddy like these during this step. You want the frosting to dry but not the cake itself.
4. Put the rainbow suckers in a bag and crush them with a rolling pin to make rainbow sprinkle chunks. ( like these reusable silicone zipper lunch bags because they don’t get holes in them when you hit/roll over the bag to break up the candy inside.)
5. Melt the candy melts in a double boiler full of water on low. Stir the candy melts with a spoon periodically to encourage the candy to melt quickly and evenly.
6. Cover the big cake balls with melted candy melts. Mine were so big that the sucker stick wasn’t going to hold the weight of the HUGE cake ball at this point. I supported the bottom of the ball with a clean hand, put it in the melted candy bowl to spoon the melted candy over it.
I used a larger spoon to scoop the cake ball from the candy bowl and move it back to my cake carrier.
7. Sprinkle the still wet coated cake balls with broken rainbow lollipop bits and gold cake sprinkles as desired.
8. Repeat Steps 6 and 7 until all of the cake balls have been covered in melted candy and sprinkles.
9. Finally, place two rainbow stickers back to back on the lollipop stick of each cake ball.
The Giant Rainbow cake balls where such a hit at the party I didn’t bring any leftovers home. Whew!
If you want to make cake balls the easy way, check out the following options – and more! – below!
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Eat the rainbow!
Yea, yea I know. I usually bake cakes from scratch but in this case, it is a dairy free cake mix with vibrant colors I can only get if I buy an army of cake coloring gels like these. I really wanted to focus on turning the horse shaped cake into a unicorn using licorice laces like these for the tail and a twist lollipop like this one for the horn.
Not to mention, I would really be nice to be able to eat a food allergy friendly cake at a birthday party – something I don’t get to do even on my own birthday. *sad face*
How to Fix a Broken Birthday Cake
I didn’t grease the cake pan evenly enough with cooking oil and flour (to keep it dairy free) when I baked both layers of the cake. Generally you can use cake frosting as “glue” to save cracked birthday cake and stick the broken pieces together. After the frosting as glue hardens a bit, you can frost and decorate the cake and no one will ever know. I’ve done it more often than I care to admit.
Unless, you try to stick broken pieces of cake together when the cake is still a little warm and not 100% cool. Then you might end up with a cake wreck that looks like this:
Keep reading I'll teach you how to save this broken cake and make you the hero of the birthday party!
Did I mention the party was the next day and at this point I didn’t have time to bake and decorate a new tie dye cake?
But I promised rainbow and by golly rainbows they shall have! Time to turn this pile of broken but still yummy (I checked) birthday cake into GIANT rainbow cake balls!
How to Make Giant Cake Balls
You will need this ingredients and tools
Tie Dye Cake Mix (or the cake flavor of your choice)
White cake frosting – if you’d rather buy than DIY frosting, try this one
Paper lollipop sticks
Rainbow Lollipop
Gold sprinkles for cake decorating
White candy melts – or the color of your choice
Rainbow stickers – these are the exact rainbow stickers I used
Double boiler – I used a glass bowl sitting on a pot of water.
Optional but extremely helpful and recommended:
Sphere cupcake mold
Wilton Ultimate 3-In-1 Cupcake Caddy and Carrier like this one - it took me forever to find a reusable carrier that can hold round, rectangle, and shaped cakes. I splurged on this one because it has an insert that can carry 2 different size cupcake or cake balls and I have not regretted it one little bit.
Step by Step how to make it recipe and tutorial
2. If you don’t have a ball cake pan, bake the rainbow cake according to the directions, let it cool completely, and carefully crumble/chunk the cake with just enough cake icing n a mixing bowl so you can form the mixture into a series of ball shapes.
I made my cake balls about the size of a baseball/cupcake. Yes it will turn out to be a glorious sugar bomb but birthdays only come one a year and I wanted some kind of win at this point.
3. Place a lollipop stick in the center of each cake ball. Let the cake balls sit a bit so the frosting hardens a bit which will make Step 4 easier. This is also why I recommend using a covered cupcake caddy like these during this step. You want the frosting to dry but not the cake itself.
4. Put the rainbow suckers in a bag and crush them with a rolling pin to make rainbow sprinkle chunks. ( like these reusable silicone zipper lunch bags because they don’t get holes in them when you hit/roll over the bag to break up the candy inside.)
5. Melt the candy melts in a double boiler full of water on low. Stir the candy melts with a spoon periodically to encourage the candy to melt quickly and evenly.
I'm melting!
I used a larger spoon to scoop the cake ball from the candy bowl and move it back to my cake carrier.
7. Sprinkle the still wet coated cake balls with broken rainbow lollipop bits and gold cake sprinkles as desired.
8. Repeat Steps 6 and 7 until all of the cake balls have been covered in melted candy and sprinkles.
9. Finally, place two rainbow stickers back to back on the lollipop stick of each cake ball.
Happy birthday party rainbow cake balls!
The Giant Rainbow cake balls where such a hit at the party I didn’t bring any leftovers home. Whew!
If you want to make cake balls the easy way, check out the following options – and more! – below!
Did you like this post? Get more like it by subscribing to the Lazy Budget Chef RSS feed or by subscribing to Lazy Budget Chef by email.
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