Now, keep in mind that this cake involves a lot of...stuff. By that I mean, a lot of bowls, gel colouring, layers, tools, cake tins etc. because of the nature of a rainbow cake, it involves a lot of preparation and a lot of organisation, before and during the actual baking process. For that simple reason I would reccommend that you read everything in this recipe a couple of times before proceeding, that you organise your workspace well and that you allow yourself a lot of time to do things properly, and perhaps slowly, instead of rushing and ending up with a messy result.
This cake looks in-freaking-credible, but you know what the best bit about it is, it tastes AMAZING too!
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| What a slice of absolute heaven! Perfect for children and adults alike! |
Cake Ingredients:
750 g- Self-Raising Flour
750 g - Caster sugar
100 ml - Milk (Whole or semi-skimmed - if preferred)
9 - Large Eggs (In an emergency medium should be fine, just add a dash of milk if necessary)
9 - Large Eggs (In an emergency medium should be fine, just add a dash of milk if necessary)
750 g - Softened Unsalted butter (or salted, but exclude the pinch of salt)
Pinch - Salt
2 tsp- Vanilla Extract
Various - Colour gels/pastes - In the colours of the rainbow, or your preferred colour choice.
2 tsp- Vanilla Extract
Various - Colour gels/pastes - In the colours of the rainbow, or your preferred colour choice.
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| Cake ingredients. |
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| Colour paste |
Cake Procedure:
- Pre-heat your oven to gas-mark 4 or equivalent (170 degrees c)
- Put softened butter and caster sugar into a bowl, and mix with an electric mixer (or wooden spoon etc.) until light and fluffy (usually around 5 minutes - but can depend on mixer speed).
- Crack one egg into your mixture and combine and repeat until all eggs are added.
- Combine vanilla extract and milk into this mixture.
- Slowly fold in your flour (with a spoon, spatula etc. - be careful not to knock out too much air).
- Split your batter into 6 bowls (roughly measured by eye, or if you feel the need to measure exactly, you can weigh the entire amount of batter and then divide that by six)
- Add around 1/4 tsp of colour paste to each bowl until you have all of your rainbow colours. Make sure the batter in each bowl is quite colour concentrated (as it will lighten when baking)
- Combine the colour into the batter (be careful not to knock the air out of the batter - be gentle)
- Line your cake tins with baking paper or with butter and flour - see here for method and add your cake mixture
- Bake in your pre-headed oven for about 20 minutes (Check every so often to make sure you don't burn the cakes, as every oven has a slightly different cooking time (even at the same temperature)). Poke your cakes with a skewer to check if they're cooked, if this comes out clean, remove the tins from the oven. If not, leave for a couple more minutes and try again.
- Cool your cakes in the tin for 5 minutes and then place them onto a cooling rack until completely cool. If you try to frost the cakes when they're hot, the frosting will melt, so make sure they are completely cool before decorating.
Frosting Ingredients:
300 g- Unsalted Butter - Room Temperature
700 g - Icing sugar
4/5 tbsp - Milk (Whole or semi-skimmed - if preferred)
1 tsp - Vanilla Extract
Frosting Procedure:
- Mix your butter with an electric mixer (hand or stand) for around 5 minutes on a high speed, until light and fluffy.
- Sift your icing sugar into this mix in parts, and mix well in between each addition.
- Combine vanilla extract and milk into this mixture.
- Beat on a high speed again for around 2/3 minutes
Useful decoration tools:
Spatula -
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http://amzn.to/235Cr8F
Pallette knife (Essential for icing smoothly - especially on bigger cakes) -
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Measuring utensils:
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Cake stand -
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Mixer -
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Mixing bowls -
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Cake turntable (essential for smooth icing on big cakes) -
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Cake tins -
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Colour paste / gel -
http://amzn.to/235CDEI
Cake Leveller - http://amzn.to/1T40y2F
Decoration Procedure:
- Once your cakes are completely cooled, you're ready to decorate!
- Use a cake leveller or serrated knife to cut the tops off of your layers (because of discolouration and texture)
- Trim the outside edge off of your layers by cutting round the cake layers with a knife. It's good to use a circular shaped item such as a plate or cake round which is slightly smaller than your cakes in order to make sure you are left with a perfectly round circle. With the left-over bits of cake here that you've trimmed off, save them for later. A small amount are used for decoration, but they're also very useful if you want to make some colourful cake-pops.
- Place your plate/cake board onto a turntable if you have one. Spread a small amount of icing onto this board, which will ensure your cake sticks to the board/plate and doesn't slip around.
- Put your purple cake level onto your cake board and add a dollop of frosting. Level this out and continue until all of your levels are completed. Make sure you do your colours in reverse order, so purple first, then blue, green, yellow, orange, red.
- Once all of your layers are piled high with frosting in between we can finally see the cake coming together! Now you need to apply a crumb coat! - I've linked what this is if you're unsure, but it's pretty simple! You just need to frost the outside and top of your cake with a thin layer of frosting and level it off, this doesn't have to be the neatest, it's only to lock in crumbs that could colour your outside decoration!
- In order to allow the crumb coat to do it's magic, place the cake into the fridge for about an hour, so that this coat firms up and locks in these pesky crumbs!
- Now frost your cake properly, with a palette knife (cranked mini palette knifes are useful) and ensure even sides to your cake, levelling the top too! This is the final piece of decoration, apart from a special touch of colour, therefore, it's important that you take your time and make sure it's neat. You could also take the #nakedcake approach if desired.
- Now crumble up some of them bits of cake you put away earlier, and sprinkle on top, in a design or randomly for a bit of colour on top. You could also add sprinkles if desired!
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| Cake whilst levelling process |
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| Left-overs |
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| Final Product |
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| Final Product |
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| Final Product |
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| Final Product |
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