I love this cake. And, I’m going to show you how to make it. Alright, take your favorite flavor cake and bake it up (I used my favorite chocolate cake recipe for this cake here). Pick out a nice vanilla frosting. Swiss meringue buttercream is always nice and smooth, but here I used a creamy, flour-based frosting for extra richness.

Frost the cake in a simple layer of white icing. Don’t worry too much about getting the icing perfectly even–ideally, you won’t really see it much anyways expect where it peeks out from under the rainbow. Prepare your rainbow of colors! Try the classic ROYGBIV, pick your 3 favorite colors, or even go with 4-5 shades of one color for a gorgeous ombre effect. I’ve also used this technique with a single color for a simple, textured style of frosting.

Blobs of each color go on the cake, in order.

For the pretty petal effect, take the back of a spoon and gently smoosh the blob, pulling the spoon and the frosting outwards. I kept 6 spoons next to my frosting, one for each color dot so the frosting colors wouldn’t get muddy.

Repeat this process for each column, taking care to line the dots up precisely and layer the fresh dot in the middle of the previous column’s petals. With each column, keep the colors in the same order, but alternate which color starts the column. For example, red/orange/yellow/green/blue/purple becomes orange/yellow/green/blue/purple/red the next column. And so on.

Would you believe me if I told you that this process didn’t take nearly as long as it looks? Because it really doesn’t, and it’s also quite forgiving. If you’re one of those people who has trouble getting the icing perfectly smooth, give this technique a try! I put my cake in a turntable so I could rotate quickly as I made progress along the side of the cake, which helped to speed things up.

I decided to continue the rainbow petal theme onto the top of the cake by making a big flower.

This cake was for a birthday, but think of the possibilities different color combos could mean! Pink and blue for a gender reveal or baby shower event, all white for a wedding, red/white/blue for the 4th of July, or even in all pastels for any occasion.

Get creative and be prepared for the “oohs” and “ahhs” you’ll get when you bring this pretty petal cake to any celebration!

Here’s a few more pictures, just because I couldn’t resist.