Dr. Seuss Layer Cake

This cake was meant to be my entry into the Pillsbury® challenge, where readers submit photos of boldly colored creations for a chance to win weekly prizes. I was just about to call it "A Celebration of Spring", when Fuzz walked in and asked "What's up with the Dr. Seuss cake?" She was right!  This cake would be perfect for a Seussical the Musical cast party or a "Dr. Seuss" themed birthday.

Here's what the Seussian layer cake looked like before I cut into it.

Pillsbury Bold Colored Cake Mix Pouches

The bold colors come courtesy of Pillsbury Baking, who recently introduced pouches of cake mix in vibrant, bold colors. Each pouch gives you about 12 cupcakes or one 8 inch round layer perfect for stacking and color coordinating. They’re also handy if you do not typically bake with food coloring because you can bake special occasion cakes like this one without having to buy five or six bottles of specialty colors (I don’t think grocery store food coloring would give you deep enough colors).

Dr. Seuss Cake Tips

Update: It's been a while since I've seen the bold colored cake mix pouches, so you may have to use regular white or yellow cake mix and just dye the layers blue, orange, green and yellow.

1. Pick out four pouches of cake mix based on a theme. If you’re going with a Dr. Seuss theme, Google up a page that shows all the book covers, then match your cake colors to the book’s colors. Mine looks like an “Oh the Places You Will Go Cake” despite the fact I didn’t use any pink or purple. Next time I’d integrate those colors.

2. Bake the cakes as directed using 8 inch round cake pans. If they dome, trim the domes. Let the cakes cool. If you have time, wrap tightly in plastic and freeze layers separately for easier stacking and frosting.

3. You’ll need at least 2 cans of frosting for the base (this is a tall cake!) and one can of frosting to make the trim. Frosting the cake is actually a lot of fun because the frosting is already the proper color and you can skip that step. As I coordinated colors for the base coating and trim, I couldn’t help but think how great these colors would be for trimming just about any cake — box or scratch.

4. Decorate your cake with a decorating bag and your choice of tips. I used a large star tip. The trimming is a little exaggerated, which in my opinion makes it more Seussian.

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Pillsbury and I was given free samples to work with. However, I think I'm going to buy loads of colored cake mix pouches so I can make more Dr. Seuss themed cakes.

©/® The J.M. Smucker Company. Pillsbury is a trademark of The Pillsbury Company, LLC, used under license.