I’ll walk you through the step by step below. First, here’s a quick video tutorial of how I created this gradient rainbow cake, from mixing the colors to applying them:

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You Will Need:

• A cake that’s been frosted and chilled
• 1.5 batches of vanilla or other light colored buttercream
• Food color gels in rainbow shades. I used colors from The Nifty Fifty Kit (detailed below)
• Plates and spoons for color mixing
• Piping bags
• Scissors
• Ruler

Step 1: Mix Up Your Colors

Divide equal amounts of buttercream across a few plates or in separate mixing bowls. Like I said before, I got a little crazy and mixed up 20 different shades from my Nifty Fifty Kit. The colors I used (in rainbow order) are: Watermelon, Burgundy, Super Red, Soft Pint, Deep Pink, Orange, Peach, Electric Orange, Electric Yellow, Lemon Yellow, Egg Yellow, Electric Green, Leaf Green, Forest Green, Teal, Sky Blue, Navy Blue, Electric Purple, Regal Purple, and Eggplant.

The important thing with these colors is that you have a few different shades of each rainbow color, whether you use the same color in different intensities or more varied colors for each of the seven rainbow hues.

Step 2: Fill Your Piping Bags

Prepare several piping bags (enough for each shade you’ve created) by snipping off a ¼ inch opening off the tip with your scissors, then filling each bag with a different shade. It helps to have disposable piping bags for this step.

Once you’ve got your bags all filled, line them up in the order you want to pipe color-wise. Look at all those piping bags! I was swooning before I even started adding the colors to the cake.

Step 3: Measure Out Sections On The Cake

Using a ruler as your guide, mark off six equal sections with an icing spatula or other sharp object. It’s important that you start with a cake that’s been frosted and chilled so your marks are sharp and unwavering. Place marks horizontally all around the cake so you know where each color should end and a new one should begin. This way, you’ll have nice equal sections of color instead of getting towards the top of the cake and realizing you barely have room for the last few colors.

Note that you’ve marked six equal horizontal sections but have seven colors. This is because the top of the cake will act as its own (seventh) section.

Step 4: Apply The Colors

Now for the fun part! Starting at the bottom of the cake, pipe the purple hues within the bottom section you’ve marked off. I chose to start at the very bottom with the darker purples (Eggplant and Regal Purple) and saved the lighter purple (Electric Purple) for the top of the section. There’s no real pattern here other than that. The cake ends up looking really cool with the dots in a more random order rather than piping lines of the same color. In other words, it’s ok to have some of the darker purples toward the top of the section and put different colored dots next to each other.

Pipe a few stray purple dots into the section that should be blue to help with the gradient effect, then fill the rest of the next section in with the blue hues. Again, I’ve chosen to pipe the darker blue (Navy Blue) toward the bottom of the blue section and the lighter blues (Sky Blue and Teal) toward the top.

Repeat this process in reverse rainbow color order with the rest of your shades. When you get to the top of the cake, pipe all of the red shades. Remember to pipe a few stray red and pink dots down into the orange section to help with the gradient effect.

How cool is this gradient rainbow buttercream cake? I absolutely love color and having my Nifty Fifty Kit made all of my colorful cake dreams come true with this one! It’s well worth having the entire kit in your cake decorating collection. These gels last for ages and save tons of time you would have otherwise spent custom mixing different color gels to get just the right shade. Let me know if you end up making this cake and/or getting the Nifty Fifty Kit! I would love to nerd out on color with you.

The post Gradient Rainbow Buttercream Cake Tutorial appeared first on Sugar & Sparrow.

A few weeks ago, Americolor held a food photography contest where the lucky winners received the entire Nifty Fifty Kit. This handy collection has fifty different colors of soft gel paste. I about died when I was selected as one of the lucky winners and I will be swooning over my Nifty Fifty Kit for ages to come. This stuff lasts forever, and I never have to custom mix colors ever again (unless I want to get crazy!). I made a buttercream swatch of each color just to show you how amazing they are:

The best thing about Americolor soft gel pastes is they leave absolutely no aftertaste. I used the Super Black the other day to create some black buttercream, and even after achieving a dark black color, the gel paste didn’t affect the flavor at all. Not even a tiny bit! Since the soft gel pastes are so concentrated, you don’t have to use a ton, which is also helpful for maintaining the right consistency of whatever you’re coloring. Here are a few cakes I’ve created since I’ve gotten the kit, all created without mixing any colors together: 

I wrote Americolor to tell them how much I love my Nifty Fifty Kit and guess what? They’re partnering with me to give YOU the chance to win one yourself! I can’t tell you how life changing it is to have all fifty colors in your cake toolbox, so may the odds be ever in your favor. Here’s how to enter the giveaway:

Head to my Instagram page and enter on the giveaway post by Saturday, September 15th at 12:00am. The rules are simple: 1) follow @sugarandsparrowco and @americolor on Instagram, 2) like the giveaway post, and 3) tag two friends who would love to win. Piece of cake. Oh, and did I mention that the giveaway is worldwide? That means wherever you are in the world, you can win this!

The lucky winner will be announced on my Instagram page on Monday, September 17th, so stay tuned and good luck to all! 

The post The Americolor Nifty Fifty Kit Giveaway! appeared first on Sugar & Sparrow.