rainbow cake

One very boring Sunday morning I decided I was going to have a go at baking a cake!! Bearing in mind I've never ever baked a cake before......so thought I'd give It a try, I'm not a cake lover but I do love cooking and In all honesty I thought it wasn't bad for a first attempt.

In the end I made a large two layer cake and a small single layer cake.

Utensils

1 large mixing bowl
jug or small mixing bowl
wooden mixing spoon
spatula
sieve
hand whisk or electric whisk/mixer
4 breakfast bowls (or more depending on how many different colours your going to use)
4 or more spoons
food weighing scales
26cm - 10" springform pan
2 x 18cm - 7" pans
baking paper
red, green, yellow and blue food colouring
a table spoon
wooden skewer

Ingredients

330g butter (room temperature)
330g caster sugar
330g self-raising flour
6 medium-large eggs
vanilla essence to taste (optional) i didn't use this as i thought the cake was rich enough
food colouring-red, green, yellow and blue

Buttercream

120g butter (room temperature)
280g icing sugar
a few drops of vanilla essence (optional but tasty)
food colouring (optional)

Directions

grease your baking pans with butter
line baking pans with baking paper (you can also grease the baking paper if your worried about it sticking, this is optional)
preheat oven to 200c
in a large mixing bowl add the butter and sugar
cream until light and fluffy (so that it easily falls off the spoon)
in a jug or small mixing bowl add all 6 eggs and whisk together
add the whisked eggs to the sugar and butter a little at a time,beating well after each addition
sieve the flour into the mixture about a quarter at a time, folding after each addition
divide the mixture equally between the four or more breakfast bowls- now for the fun part!!
mix each bowl of cake mix a different colour with the food colouring (see below for how to mix food colouring)
add 1 table spoon of each colour in the center of the cake pans, one after the other, ensuring each "blob" of mixture is placed on top of the next (do not spread mixture out it will do this on its own )
place in the middle of preheated oven for 30 mins (small cake) after 20mins turn oven down to 150c, large cake may take longer (40-45mins),test with a skewer in the middle of cake, if its clean its done!
NEVER open the oven door before the 1st 20mins or so of cooking as this will cause the cake to sink!
allow cakes to stand before turning on to a cooling rack, then carefully peal off baking paper
allow to fully cool for an hour or so

Mixing the buttercream

place softened butter in a bowl
sieve small amounts of icing in with the butter and cream together, do this until its a nice consistency
if you find its still to "sloppy" add more icing sugar until you reach the desired consistency!
add a few drops of food colouring (optional) ideally a colouring paste would be better but i didn't have any and just used the liquid form, be careful with this as it can make your butter cream to runny
spread a small amount on the center of the large cake, then place the smaller cake on top
cover and place in the fridge for 15-20mins to allow the buttercream to set

Covering the cake

one tub of shop bought betty crocker chocolate buttercream or you can make your own but i tuck the easy option!!
spread the butte cream over the cakes carefully (taking care not to mix the two buttercreams together, it will look messy!
then decorate!!!

How to mix food colouring
When mixing food colouring you need to use equal amounts, i use the lid of the food colouring bottle as a guide.

There are four main colours available, and these colours can be used alone or mixed to make a preferred colour!

Here are a few colours that can be made-

pale blue- 4 drops of blue to 1 drop of green
purple- 1 drop of red to 1 drop of blue
orange- 2 drops of red to 3 drops of yellow
salmon/pink- 3 drops of red to 2 drops of yellow
lime green- 3 drops of yellow to 1 drop of green
brown- 5 drops of red, 6 drops of yellow to 3 drops of green
black- equal amounts of all 4 colours