Rainbow Cake in A Jar Recipe | Fun Recipe for Kids!

I am a cake girl at heart. I love cupcakes, cake, brownies….anything cakey! I also love rainbows and bright colors! I happened to be in the mood one day to try this fun little number for rainbow cake in a jar. I had to modify some of it though as this particular linked recipe said to use quart jars, and that is not correct. You need to use pint jars, not quart!! So after 2 attempts at the recipe (first time I went and bought quart jars only to find they were too big and the cake only filled half the jar…ugh!), I finally got it right and the cakes turned out so good!

Here is what you need for this recipe:

• 1 Betty Crocker Super Moist white cake mix
• 1 Tub Betty Crocker Whipped Ready to Spread white frosting
• 3 egg whites (for cake mix)
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil (for cake mix)
• 1 1/4 cup water (for cake mix)
• Betty Crocker NEON food colors in neon pink, neon blue and neon purple (I bought the gel food colors)
• Regular food colors in yellow, green, red and blue (I decided to use the neon orange from the neon colors and I omitted the yellow)
• 4 (1-PINT) wide-mouth glass canning jars
• Non-stick cooking spray

What you do:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Wash 4 one-pint canning jars and dry thoroughly. Set lids and rims aside. Spray inside of each glass jar with a generous amount of non-stick cooking spray.

Make cake batter according to directions on cake mix box.

Divide batter evenly between 5 bowls (approximately 1 cup of batter in each bowl). Add 15 drops of neon pink food coloring to the 1st bowl. Stir to blend well. Add 14 drops of regular yellow food coloring to the 2nd bowl. Stir to blend well. Add 24 drops of regular green food coloring to the 3rd bowl. Stir to blend well. Add 7 drops of neon blue food coloring to the 4th bowl. Stir to blend well. Add 8 drops of regular red + 7 drops of regular blue + 3 drops of neon purple food coloring to the 5th bowl. Stir to blend well. Because I am so anal and matchy-matchy, you can see that my batter happens to match the bowls that I have of my 2 yr old daughter. I swear I did not go buy matching bowls just for this recipe! Ha!

Spoon about 1/4-cup of each color batter into each of the jars, layering the colors in this order: purple (first), blue, green, yellow (or orange), pink (last). Use a paper towel to wipe any spills or drips from the jars.

Place the jars in a glass baking dish. Add 1/4″ of water to the bottom of the dish surrounding the jars. Bake for 35-40 minutes. Cake tops should spring back to the touch when done, but don’t bake so long that the cakes are brown. You can also use a long bamboo skewer to test doneness if you have one.

Allow cakes to cool completely, about one hour, before frosting. This is how they should look when all complete.

Spread frosting over top of cake and decorate as desired. I went for the classic sprinkles, but if you have a special occasion, you can use any type of sprinkles.

I don’t know if you are on Pinterest, but when I was on there browsing for recipes on Friday night, I came across this awesome idea for rainbow frosting which I think would also be a great topping for this cake if you used the primary colors and not the neon. Doesn’t this look fun??

I would love to know if you’ve made this recipe. If you decide to try it out, please post some pics on our Facebook page! If you love this recipe, please share the link, pin it or stumble it!