Layered rainbow cake

Rainbow cake

Name: Rainbow cake
Prep time: 2 h
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 3 h
Yield: Cuts into 18 slices
Cuisine: British
Ingredients: 125g butter softened, plus a little extra for the tin; 225g self-raising flour; 150g golden caster sugar; 3 medium eggs (very important to use the correct size); 1 tsp baking powder; pinch of salt; 1 tsp vanilla extract; 1 tbsp milk optional if batter is too stiff; edible food colouring - red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple, plus optional pink (see below); 1 tsp vanilla extract; 750g soft cheese or mascarpone; 350g icing sugar

Sarah Cook

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Cuts into 18 slices

A challenge

Prep: 2 hrs

Cook: 1 hr

A star rating of 3.3 out of 5.213 ratingsRate

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A stunning celebration cake of six or seven colourful layers with soft cheese frosting – this vibrant rainbow cake is an impressive showstopper

Freezable (un-iced sponges only)

Nut-free

Vegetarian

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This recipe was updated after retesting on the 10/04/24.

Ingredients

Nutrition

Units:

MetricUS

You'll need 3 x these ingredients for six sponges

125g butter

softened, plus a little extra for the tin
225g self-raising flour
150g golden caster sugar
3 medium eggs

(very important to use the correct size)
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp milk

optional if batter is too stiff
edible food colouring

- red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple, plus optional pink (see below)

For the icing

1 tsp vanilla extract
750g soft cheese

or mascarpone
350g icing sugar

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Nutrition: per slice

kcal614
fat30g
saturates18g
carbs75g
sugars46g
fibre2g
protein9g
salt1.36g

low

Method

step 1

Heat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Butter 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.
step 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 two 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 15-20 mins until a skewer poked into the middle comes out clean. Don't worry if the sponges are thin, there are many layers.
step 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 two 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.
step 4

To make the icing, very briefly beat the vanilla and soft 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.
step 5

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. For more expert advice on how to create the perfect rainbow cake, check out our tips, below.

RECIPE TIPS

HOW TO CREATE THE PERFECT COLOURS

To make sure you’ve got a good balance of colours, test your colourings in a little water first – I tried over 20 shades before I found my favourite combination!

TIPS FOR A PROFESSIONAL FINISH

When you make each batch, keep a small 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.

WHICH COLOURS DID WE USE

We used SK Professional Paste Food Colour and Quality Food Colour paste ranges from squires-shop.com. Buy pots in Red, Orange, Sunflower, Fern, Hyacinth, Purple and Pink. From the supermarket, try Dr Oetker gel food colours in Bright Red, Neon Orange, Sunshine Yellow, Lime Green, Sky Blue, Ultra Violet and Hot Pink.

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!

Recipe from Good Food magazine, April 2013

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A star rating of 3.3 out of 5.213 ratings

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