What if a wedding cake met a rainbow and turned into a joyful tower of cream puffs for a 4-month-old fairy?

To celebrate my niece’s 4-month birthday, I wanted to create a dessert that reflected her spirit: vibrant, delicate, and full of joy. This cake became a symbol of creativity, resilience, and love — with a lot of butter and food coloring along the way.

Originally, I had envisioned a cone-shaped rainbow tower. But as the build progressed, I realized a layered structure with evenly sized discs would offer more space, better stability, and easier decoration. So the “rainbow cone” became a tiered rainbow tower — and I love the result even more.

This instructable documents the full process: from design and baking to troubleshooting and decorating — ending with a joyful shared moment with my family.

### For the choux (makes ~45)

**Craquelin topping**

- 66g butter

- 80g sugar

- 80g flour

**Choux pastry**

- 120g butter

- 124ml water

- 124ml milk

- 140g high-protein flour

- 6 eggs

**Cream filling**

- 4 egg yolks

- 80g sugar

- 40g flour

- 400ml milk

- 340ml cream (35%)

- 30g powdered sugar

- Optional: thickener (e.g. Fix Chantilly)

**Icing glaze**

- 200g powdered sugar

- 4–5 tbsp liquid (milk or water)

- 1 tsp neutral oil (for shine)

- Food coloring (preferably premixed shades)

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### Decorations & Tools

- 6 foam discs (same size)

- 3 packs of artificial flowers (12 flowers each)

- 3 orange decorative butterflies

- LED string light (2m, battery-powered)

- Mixed blue, pink, and gold beads

- Blue glitter, silver glitter

- Toothpicks & wooden barbecue sticks

- Aluminum foil and plastic wrap

The original idea came from browsing rainbow and wedding cake towers on Pinterest. I imagined a vertical cone of colorful cream puffs and flowers.

But in practice, a conical structure made the surface area too narrow to fully display my decorations — glitter, pearls, flowers, LED lights. So I pivoted and went for tiered foam discs, all the same size, stacked to form a sturdy, festive tower.

This gave the final dessert a totemic, symmetrical look that felt celebratory and magical.

To keep things sustainable and flexible:

1. I used artificial flowers, so I can reuse them for future cakes
2. 
   
3. I bought all my decorations from a low-cost shop (Action) for about €25
4. 
   
5. The base was made with recycled foam discs, toothpicks and barbecue sticks
6. 
   

💡 Lesson: Constraints make you creative. The best design sometimes comes from letting go of the first idea and responding to reality.

This step took time, precision, and… a few emotional breakdowns.

I followed this choux recipe from Yumchief and doubled it.

I will show some pictures of me following the recipe, but see directly the recipe for more precisions, It’s very well explained.

For the Puffs dough:

Ingredients for the puffs.

Heating the butter, milk and water. Once hot, adding the flour.

Cooking the obtained dough. Then adding the eggs out of the fire.

The craquelin : (the crusty top of the

Ingredients

Dough mixing and spreading.

Cutting the disks with the cap of a container (4mm diameter).

Cooking the puffs :

Tip 1 💡 : Place the piping bag in a big glass so that you can fill it easily.

First batch of puffs, I didn't space them far enough apart so they came together during cooking but are nicely browned

For the second batch, I spaced out the puffs more and the result was rounder and airier.

Tip 2 💡 : Space well the puffs for a beautiful result.

Tip 3 💡 :Rotate the plate in the oven after 12 min to obtain a homogeneous cooking for all your puffs.

Cream:

Filling the choux buns and icing :

💡 Lessons learned:

1. Don’t store choux in a closed box — it traps humidity and makes them soggy.
2. 
   
3. Use a skewer to open any puff that isn’t naturally hollow.
4. 
   
5. Don't overfill your choux — I exploded a few perfect ones by being too enthusiastic.
6. 
   
7. If a puff didn’t rise or looks deflated, thank it and let it go.
8. 
   

🧠 Tip: If your whipped cream is too runny, a thickener (like Fix Chantilly) can save it. I used 2.5 sachets to reach the right texture.

This part was critical: the colors make the rainbow.

1. Always test the glaze on a single choux first. Wait 2 minutes. If it runs: add sugar.
2. 
   
3. Get your glaze base right (white, shewy, opaque) before dividing and coloring.
4. 
   
5. Mixing food colors is tricky — red + yellow ≠ your dream orange.
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7. Whenever possible, buy premixed food colors to save time and stress.
8. 
   

In total, 10 choux didn’t make it because of a too-liquid glaze.

💡 But hey — I scraped the glaze off, dipped them in chocolate, and kept them as backstage snacks.

To begin building the structure, I started with the two bottom tiers, which represented the warm end of the rainbow. These layers included decorative elements in red, pink, pale pink, violet, and fuchsia.

Instead of removing the plastic wrapping from the foam discs, I decided to keep it. I wiped it clean with a cloth and used it as a base for gluing decorations. This saved time and ensured a smoother surface.

Using a hot glue gun, I first decorated the edges (contours) of each foam disc, sticking artificial roses, glitter, and beads along the perimeter. The result was vibrant and floral, perfect for the warm color theme.

Then, I stacked the two decorated discs on top of each other. I glued them slightly off-center to create a playful visual offset — a little step between tiers — and added more tiny roses along the new edge formed by the shift. Everything in this stage was secured using hot glue only.

For the next two tiers (layers 3 and 4), I moved into the cool end of the rainbow, decorating with blue and green beads, sticky blue pearls, and a few carefully placed flowers.

To maintain visual harmony, I added:

1. Red flowers on the lower cool tier (disc 3) to create a color echo from the warm section
2. Pale pink flowers on the upper cool tier (disc 4) to soften the transition and create a delicate gradient

To assemble:

1. I fixed disc 3 to disc 2 using wooden skewers inserted into both foam layers
2. Since disc 3 was offset, I added extra skewers on the floating side, acting like support pillars
3. I secured each pillar with hot glue at the contact point, to prevent the skewers from sinking deeper into the foam under the weight

For disc 4 (the carousel):

1. I reused the same skewer technique, but this time I let the skewers run through both discs entirely, connecting disc 4 directly to disc 3
2. Once the skewers pierced through and held the disc in place, I applied hot glue on top, around the visible tip of each skewer, to lock them in position
3. Finally, I cut off the excess wood sticking out, leaving a clean, stable top

💡 Tip: Combining skewers for structure and glue for stability creates a solid, lightweight core — and lets you offset or elevate tiers creatively.

For the fifth tier, I shifted into the yellow zone of the rainbow. I wanted this layer to shine and radiate warmth, so I used a slightly different technique for decoration.

In addition to yellow beads and flowers, I used a spray adhesive to cover the surface with fine yellow glitter, which gave the disc a soft sparkle and helped it catch the light beautifully.

Just like with the previous tiers:

1. I attached disc 5 to disc 4 using wooden skewers
2. No offset this time — I wanted a cleaner line as the tower tapered upward

💡 Tip: Spray adhesive is a great way to apply glitter evenly without clumps — just make sure to use it in a well-ventilated space and protect your working area!

Before placing any choux on the structure, I wanted to make sure the surface would be food-safe and easy to clean. So I added a simple, effective layer of hand-folded aluminum foil on the zones where the pastries would be placed:

1. On disc 2 (small free side)
2. At the center of the carousel zone (between discs 3 and 4)
3. On top of disc 5,

The foil serves three key purposes:

1. It creates a barrier between the food and the plastic wrap covering the foam
2. It can be easily replaced if any cream or filling spills
3. It adds a touch of “shyniness” that complements the glitter and decorative elements

The foil pieces were simply laid down, not glued or fixed, which makes them flexible and quick to remove if needed.

This is where it all came together:

1. I added the cream puffs.
2. 
   
3. Also added butterflies in orange in the middle of the carroussel.
4. 
   
5. And the LED glow all around, and last but not least
6. ... showing the cake to my niece 🥰

Her smile was the most beautiful reward.

This project was not perfect — and that’s what made it beautiful.

From running around town for food coloring (thanks to a Polish label and Google Translate), to watching the cream melt, to breaking perfectly baked choux… I wanted to give up multiple times.

But then I remembered:

“She who has a strong ‘why’ can survive any ‘how’.”

This wasn’t about perfection. It was about building something joyful, handmade, and full of love.

And I did. So can you.