Fireworks Cake: How to Hack a Box Cake Mix and Frosting in a Tub

I adore food hacks. Anything that makes something simple into something marvelous is a winner in my book. I’m still on my patriotic kick and was thinking about making something red, white, and blue. At the grocery store, there was a display that had Pillsbury cake mixes and tubs of frosting. Alongside, these products was a coupon for buy two, save $1. I love a good deal so instantly my wheels starting turning. Cakes with multiple colorful layers always look so pretty to me; you can do a lot with one cake batter and a box of food coloring. Bingo! With my good idea in mind, I purchased my products (less than $3) and went home to my humble kitchen to get to work.

Here’s what happened…

I created the batter in my stand mixer following the directions on the box. It was a white cake mix that called for eggs, oil, and water. Easy peasy!

Next, I separated the batter into three portions and added red food coloring to one part and blue to another. It took about 25 drops of food coloring to get the dark colors that I needed.

Using a 9-inch bundt pan sprayed with non-stick baking spray, I set to work creating my layered cake. I poured the red batter in first because I wanted it on the top of the cake when it was inverted. A spatula was used to spread it in the pan. I followed the red batter with the white and the blue spread each one with a spatula but not mixing the colors.

Into the oven! I then baked the batter for 39 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Starting to smell great!

At this point, I thought to myself, if I can hack the cake mix, why not hack the frosting too? In order to make the frosting pourable, I microwaved it for 30 seconds on high. I made sure I removed every bit of the foil lid because I like fireworks in the sky and not in my microwave. LOL While the cake was baking, I used food coloring to dye the frosting after dividing into three parts. This process also took about 25 drops of food coloring per portion. I didn’t want pink or baby blue icing.

Once I removed the cake from the oven, I let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes. I have found that this helps to avoided ripped and torn bundt cakes. A little patience goes a long way. I then inverted the cake on a cooling rack and let it cool completely.

After cooling the cake, I was super excited to decorate. I wanted my cake to be reminiscent of fireworks. Starting with the blue frosting in a cup with a spout, I drizzled frosting from the center of the cake to the outside of the cake. I repeated this step with the white and the red frosting too.

Lastly, I sprinkled on some patriotic cake sprinkles on the bundt cake and let the icing set.

This cake was so fun and so easy! I adore the final outcome and so did my “guinea pigs”, I mean family. What you don’t see is that the fork pictured above is slowly being pulled off the plate as someone tries to snag a bite of cake. I had to take my end pictures quickly because the urge to test my bake was great today. That’s okay with me, I like eating cake better than taking pictures anyway.

I hope you all have a great Fourth of July!

😊Jennifer