A tale of two cakes

My tale starts with these two girls: Sarah, who is turning 12 in two days, and Libby who turned 7 a week ago. They are alike in a lot of ways. They both were born in July, they both have hazel eyes (everyone else has blue), and they are both left-handed. We celebrated both of their birthdays last night with the family, and we served two different cakes: Strawberry-Lime Cream Cake from Mel's Kitchen Cafe, and a tie-dye cake. The idea for the tie-dye cake came from Shawni at 71toes. Nicole loved the tie-dye idea, and this was actually the second one she made.

Here's a shot of the Strawberry-Lime confection. This is what it looked like with the layers put together with the lime cream and strawberry sauce.

Here's a shot with Libby's birthdays candles in it:

Here's the tie-dye cake just out of the oven:

Here's a shot of the tie-dye cake with Sarah's matching birthday candles in it. No one knew what was inside til we cut it. We called it "surprise cake."

The trick for making a tie-dye cake is really pretty easy. Start with a white cake mix and mix it up according to package directions. We used gel food colors in bright neons: pink, green, orange and purple. Separate the cake batter into 4 bowls and color each a different color. Then just spoon the colors into each of two 9-inch cake pans. Don't stir it together. Bake and this is what you get. **Be sure and use white cake and neons for the most vivid colors. Nicole tried it with yellow cake and regular colors, and it wasn't as pretty.**

We frosted both cakes with the whipped cream frosting in the Strawberry-Lime Cream Cake recipe.

Everyone thought the tie-dye cake was really awesome, especially the kids. We all thought the Strawberry-Lime cake was delicious. So good!