my cousin ray and her partner jay (i know: ray & jay - how cute are they?!) are having a baby in 7 weeks.  we are all so excited for their baby boy to be born.  ray’s sister (jul) was tasked with organizing the baby shower and since she knows i love parties of all types, jul volunteered me to help. which i gladly accepted. the baby shower took place this past saturday and it was a smashing success!

we went with the rubber duckies theme for the decor and invites.  bright blue and yellow welcomed guests on saturday afternoon.

for the favors, jul found tulip seeds (ray’s flower!) and her and her mom (my auntie) wrapped them on little baskets with blue and yellow tulle.

ray is the first one from our generation of cousins to have a kid so everyone in the family is very much looking forward to his arrival.

look at how sweet he looks in his sonogram picture!

this, being a dominican family affair meant there was lots food. delicious food!

i piled my plate high with: salad, potato salad, roast chicken, roast pork shoulder, quipes (wheat and ground beef appetizers), empanadas and rice with peas. i took some food home and i am currently eating empanadas as i write this post. 

we all had to bring a dish and i was tasked with bringing the cake. we wanted a gender neutral cake and settled on a fun rainbow cake. i was inspired by this post and i used a traditional dominican sponge cake recipe for it. 

i learned to make basic dominican cake this past spring. i took a baking class with another one of my cousins (there are a few of us).  dominican cake is a light sponge cake with vanilla flavors and just the right amount of sugar. 

here is the recipe for basic dominican sponge cake!

INGREDIENTS:
2 sticks of butter (at room temp)
2 sticks of margarine (at room temp)
2 cups of sugar
3 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
12 eggs (at room temp)
2 tbs of baking powder 
1 tsp salt
1 cup of 1% or fat free milk (or 1/2 cup of whole milk mixed with 1/2 cup of water)
lime peel

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i also used purple, blue, green, yellow, orange and red gel food coloring. it has to be get to get the intense color in each layer 

INSTRUCTIONS:
start by mixing together the butter and margarine. do this for about 5 minutes, until they are have a cream consistency. 

after the first 5 minutes, add the sugar and mix together (using the paddle attachement) for 20 minutes. 

while the sugar and butter are mixing sift the flour together with the salt and baking powder.  sift the flour twice to get a bouncier cake.

check on your butter/margarine/sugar mix. this is what it looked like about 10 minutes in:

next, start separating 6 of the 12 eggs. the way i do it is by cutting up a little hole on top of the egg and let the egg white come out smoothly. i then finish cracking the egg and place the yolks in another bowl. 

this recipe calls for 6 egg yolks and 6 whole eggs.  set them aside until it is time to start adding them in.

have your milk handy as well. 

start by adding the whole eggs one by one. make sure they are mixed in before you add the next one. 

this is my batter after the whole eggs went in. 

next, add the yolks one by one as well. 

now, add the flour and milk in three parts:

FLOUR -> MILK -> FLOUR -> MILK -> FLOUR

know what i mean?

add the vanilla extract and mix the batter for a minute before turning the mixer off.

sprinkle the lime zest (i used about a teaspoon) and mix well with a spatula. we do this to make sure any unmixed eggs that may be hiding on the bowl’s edges get mixed in.

if you were making a basic sponge cake this is where i would tell you to pour your batter on two 11x2in or 12x2in baking pans and bake for 35-40 minutes at 300º. but we are making a rainbow cake, so there are more steps to come.

divide the batter equally into 6 bowls. i used my measuring cup to it. it was almost two cups per bowl. 

squeeze a bit of food coloring onto each bowl.

and mix them in well. 

each bowl will make a layer of the rainbow.  

next, pour your batter into well greased 9in pans. 

and bake each pan for 15 minutes at 350º. i like to place the baking pans on a baking sheet with water and have another baking sheet with water on the bottom of the oven.  the steam makes for fluffier cakes. 

while they are baking start cleaning up - there were a lot of dirty dishes. 

once all of your cakes are cooked let them cool in the pans. cover each pan with foil or plastic wrap and let them rest overnight.

the next day i made my favorite buttercream recipe and stacked the cake to make the rainbow with plenty of buttercream between each layer. purple, blue, green, yellow, orange and red. 

then i decorated it and went over to the baby shower. i added some pretty blue edible glitter to the top. 

and i could stop writing here and let you believe everything went well. but it didn’t. i did not refrigerate my cake after applying the buttercream. when i was in the cab going to the hall were the baby shower was held, the buttercream melted and the layers went all over the place. once i got to the hall i ran in with my cake in shambles. i was disheartened. i really wanted to make something special for jay and ray and it was ruined. i was so close to tears, but i knew i had to figure out a way to fix the cake. 

so, spatula in hand i went to work. the final product had visible layers and was almost as crooked as the tower of pisa, but it was a cake we could eat. 

i added more edible glitter and put a few rubber duckies on top to make it prettier.  when i showed it to ray and jay i explained what i was supposed to look like (the picture above) and they just laughed and said they thought it was cute. this was a similar reaction from other guests. so as you can see, i know some very very kind people.  

once we cut into the cake, the top three layers were clearly defined. the lower layers, were most of the melting had taken place, were not as defined but still there. thankfully, the cake tasted good and was a hit with everyone. 

from now on, i will never forget to refrigerate buttercream again! 

i hope you had a good weekend. have a great week, thank you for stopping by and reading my stories!