EASY 6-LAYER RAINBOW CAKE

EASY 6-LAYER RAINBOW CAKE

INGREDIENTS
For the cake

• 350g self raising flour
• 3tsp baking powder
• 350g soft soft unsalted butter
• 350g caster or light brown caster sugar
• 6 large free range eggs (I tend to go for happy eggs)
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• up to 40ml semi-skimmed milk

For the frosting

• 100g butter, soft
• 250g cream cheese, at room temperature
• 600g icing sugar, sifted

INSTRUCTIONS
For the cake

First, preheat your oven to gas mark 4/170 degrees/360 degrees Fahrenheit and mix up your cake batter in the usual way - cream your butter and sugar until combined, add eggs one at a time followed by a little of the flour and mix well before adding remaining flour, baking powder and vanilla extract. If your mix is a little thick as mine was, add up to 40ml of semi-skimmed milk - adding a tablespoon at a time and stopping when you get to a consistency that you're happy with.

Next, divide your mix into 6 bowls (including your original bowl) to do your colours. I divided my mix by eye, not bothering to weigh my mixture and divide it exactly equally.
Drizzle on some of your red gel colour and mix in. Keep adding and mixing a little until you have the vibrant shade you want. Its actually very hard to go overboard with gel colours, but don't add too much at once (not more than a quarter of a teaspoon). Ten minutes and an aching arm later, you'll have a beautiful rainbow of cake batters!

Pop them into the oven and keep a close eye on them - you don't want them to get browned. I rotated my cakes on the oven shelves throughout the cooking time (mine took around 20 minutes total), taking them out as soon as a skewer to the centre came out clean.
When your cakes are cool, preferably wrap them in clingfilm and pop them into the fridge for a day (or freeze if following my ideal timeline).

For the frosting
Follow my foolproof method for thick cream cheese frosting.

When all the icing sugar is incorporated, pop the frosting into the fridge to chill. As with the cakes, ideally, do this the day before you want to decorate the cakes.

To assemble

Put a little of the cream cheese frosting on the plate or cake stand you'll be using to adhere the first layer of cake. Pop it onto the centre of the plate, and then frost and put on the next layer. Careful not to use too much frosting, as the weight of the cake will push it out the sides of the cake- just a thinnish layer is best. After the first three layers, put the cake into the fridge for thirty minutes to chill.

Continue stacking the cake, taking care to position the layers as evenly as possible, so that the sides of the cake are as straight as they can be.
Apply a crumb coat of frosting to the cake, filling any gaps between layers. The colours of the cake will be very apparent, but don't worry. Chill for 1 hour.
Apply a second coat of frosting. Chill for 1 hour.
Apply a third coat of frosting. Chill until set.Enjoy!

Easy Rainbow Cake From Scratch

Easy Rainbow Cake From Scratch

Ingredients

• 2½ cups white granulated sugar
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 3 eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup buttermilk
• ¼ cup heavy whipping cream
• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• Food coloring: red, yellow, blue, green
• 12 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1½ cups butter, softened (do not melt)
• 6 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Instructions
Preheat oven to 325 F.
Generously grease and flour 6 (9-inch cake pans.) I only had 3 pans so I had to bake in two rounds.
In a large bowl cream together sugar and butter.
Mix in eggs until thoroughly incorporated.
Mix in vanilla extract, buttermilk and heavy cream.
Mix in half of the flour, baking powder, and salt.
When mixture is combined, mix in the rest of the flour.
Divide the batter into six bowls (about 1 cup of batter per bowl)
Add food coloring to each bowl to create a vibrant red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. (see note on how to make colors)
Pour each colored batter into the prepared pans and spread out into an even layer. (layers will be thin)
Bake for 10-15 minutes or until center is set. Do not overbake. Keep a close eye on them as some ovens run hotter and these are thin layers.
Remove from oven and let cakes cool in the pan until pans are warm enough to touch.
Run a spatula around the edges of the pans to loosen the cake and then very carefully remove the cakes from the pans.
Place on a cooling rack and cool completely.
Meanwhile make the cream cheese frosting by creaming together cream cheese and butter.
Mix in powdered sugar and vanilla.
Place the violet layer down first and frost. Followed by the blue layer, green layer, yellow layer, orange layer and finally the red layer. (frost between each layer)
Place a thin coat of the icing on the cake to create a crumb coat. This will make the cake even all around and seal any loose crumbs.
Once the crumb coat is set, finish frosting the cake.
Slice & serve!
(To create more defined layers of frosting between the colors, place the frosted cake in the fridge to allow the cream cheese frosting to firm up before slicing). Enjoy!

Rainbow Layer Cake

Rainbow Layer Cake

Ingredients

Cake:

• 2 vanilla cake mix
• 2cups water
• 1cup vegetable oil
• 6eggs
• 2packages (2.7 oz each) classic gel food colors

Buttercream Frosting:

• 1cup shortening
• 1cup butter, softened
• 1bag (2 lb) powdered sugar
• 2teaspoons vanilla
• 3to 4 tablespoons milk

Directions

1 Heat oven to 350°F. Spray 3 (8-inch) round cake pans with cooking spray.
2 In large bowl, beat cake mix, water, oil and eggs with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds, then on medium speed 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Divide batter evenly among 6 small bowls, about 1 1/3 cups each.
3 Using food colors, tint batter in 1 bowl blue, 1 bowl red, 1 bowl green, 1 bowl yellow, 1 bowl orange (using red and yellow) and 1 bowl purple (using blue and red).
4 Refrigerate 3 colors of batter until ready to bake. Pour remaining 3 colors of batter into cake pans.
5 Bake 18 to 20 minutes or until cake springs back when touched lightly in center and begins to pull away from side of pan. Cool 10 minutes. Remove from pans to cooling racks; cool completely.
6 Wash cake pans. Bake and cool remaining 3 cake layers as directed.
7 In large bowl, beat shortening and butter with electric mixer on medium speed until light yellow. On low speed, gradually beat in powdered sugar. Beat in vanilla. Add milk, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating until frosting is smooth. Beat on high speed until light and fluffy.
8 Trim rounded tops off cakes to level, if needed. On serving plate, place purple cake layer. Spread with frosting to within 1/4 inch of edge. Repeat with blue, green, yellow, orange and red cake layers. Spread light coat of frosting on top and side of cake to seal in crumbs, then frost with remaining frosting.Enjoy it!