Rainbow cake
Rainbow cake
Cuts into 18 slices
Preparation and cooking times
Prep 2 hrs
Cook 1 hr
Freeze un-iced sponges only
a.. 125g butter , softened, plus a little extra for greasing
b.. 225g plain flour
c.. 150g golden caster sugar
d.. 3 medium eggs (very important to use the correct size)
e.. 1 tsp baking powder
f.. pinch of salt
g.. 1 tsp vanilla extract
h.. edible food colouring - red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple, plus
optional pink (see below)
FOR THE ICING
a.. 1 tsp vanilla extract
b.. 3 x 250g tubs cream cheese or mascarpone
c.. 350g icing sugar
1.. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Grease 2 x 20cm round sandwich tins and
line the bases with baking parchment. Tip all the sponge ingredients, apart
from the food colouring, into a mixing bowl, then beat with an electric whisk
until smooth.
2.. Working quickly, weigh the mixture into another bowl to work out the
total weight, then weigh exactly half the mixture back into the mixing bowl.
Pick 2 of your colours and stir a little into each mix. Keep going until you
are happy with the colour - the colour of the batter now will be very similar
to the finished cake, so be brave! Scrape the different batters into the tins,
trying to spread and smooth as much as possible - but try not to waste a drop
of the batter - a rubber spatula will help you. Bake on the same oven shelf for
12 mins until a skewer poked into the middle comes out clean.
3.. Gently turn the cakes out onto a wire rack to cool. Wash the tins and
bowls thoroughly, and start again from step 1 - this time using another 2
colours. Unless you're making the optional pink layer, repeat one more time to
get 6 sponges, all of different colours. Leave them all to cool.
4.. To make the icing, very briefly beat the vanilla and cream cheese or
mascarpone with an electric whisk until smooth. Sift in the icing sugar and
gently fold in with a spatula. Be careful - the more you work it, the runnier
it will get, increasing the chance of splitting.
Smear a little icing on your cake stand or plate - just a splodge to stick the
first sponge. Start with the red, then spread with some icing right to the very
edge. Repeat, sandwiching on top the orange, yellow, green, blue and finally
purple sponges. Spread the remaining icing thickly all over the sides and top
of the cake.
TIPS FOR A PROFESSIONAL FINISH
When you make each batch, keep a tiny blob of batter back - then, as you dye
each future batter, you can make sure the colour strengths match. A palette
knife, which has a long, rounded and flexible blade, makes icing big cakes much
easier, as the blade is long enough to scrape the whole side at once. You can
buy them in cookshops. A turntable really helps if you're trying to ice a big
cake. If you don't have one, use a cake stand instead.
TRIMMING YOUR SPONGES
We've kept the sponges as light as possible so they may be slightly rounded
when they come out of the oven. You may want to trim them just a shade, to
flatten so they all stack neatly together.
MAKE AN EXTRA LAYER
My recipe makes six sponge layers, but you can make one extra layer by halving
the cake quantities and baking a single sponge dyed pink - use this as your
seventh layer. It's not strictly necessary, the cake will still look fabulous
with six - but why not
PER SLICE
601 kcalories, protein 11g, carbohydrate 73g, fat 29 g, saturated fat 18g,
fibre 2g, sugar 47g, salt 0.6 g
~ Enjoy the recipes and bon appettit ~
Arlette Arthur
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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