Sometimes I just love to bake things with that extra wow factor. You always get a great reaction from something big, bright and a little different. I’m sure a bunch of you would have seen versions of these online; I certainly had and was dying to try to make one myself. I baked my first rainbow layer cake for a friend’s 21st birthday and it was awesome. I got my inspiration from whisk-kid.com; it’s a great website for baking inspiration. However, a cake such as this takes a fair bit of time, and the ingredients are plentiful, so I thought it would be a great recipe for over summer if you have some spare time or a bit of extra cash.
Cake
225g butter soft but not melted
2 1/3 cups sugar
5 egg whites
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 1/2 cups milk, zap in the microwave for 30 seconds
Red, blue and yellow food colouring, gels work best
You will need to bake 6 cakes from this recipe. I used three 22cm spring- loaded cake tins and reused them. Line the bottom with baking paper and grease the tin with butter. Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Sift dry ingredients (except sugar) into a bowl. In a large bowl cream the sugar and butter then add the egg whites and vanilla and beat to combine. Add milk and then flour mixture to the egg mixture until everything is combined. Split the cake mix between six bowls. Colour each bowl a different colour (you want them really bright). I made yellow, orange, red, green, blue and purple. Pour each colour into a cake tin and bake till firm to the touch (about 15mins).
Swiss butter cream frosting
9 egg whites
1 ¾ cups sugar
450g butter, soft but not melted
2 tsp lemon grated lemon rind
Cook the egg whites and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat, whisking constantly, until the sugar is completely dissolved then whip on high speed until room temp. On a medium speed, add the butter, bit by bit. After all the butter has been added, turn the mixer back to high speed and whip until it has come together, about five minutes. Add the extract.
Once cakes and cooled, sandwich them together in rainbow order with the Swiss butter frosting between each layer, coat the whole of the cake with the remaining frosting so it looks plain and white from the outside.