Rainbow cakes are all the rage at the moment - they are simple and hugely effective and this one was a great hit at Bear’s recent Circus themed 1st birthday party! Making one is time consuming but with just a few little tricks up your sleeve, a very easy and appealing party cake. Here’s how you can make a great cake without being a professional baker.
This recipe is for a 6 layer cake made in a26cm by 26cm tin. Many of the recipes you will find online will suggest that you use icing in between each layer – I used a cream filling which I recommend for lighter, less sickly sweet finish.
INGREDIENTS
Cake:
12 eggs
9 cups of self raising flour
3tps vanilla
750g butter
2 cups milk
3 cups castor sugar
Icing:
500g copha
2bags icing sugar
water
2tsp vanilla
Cream:
500mL thickened cream
vanilla & sugar to taste
What you will need:
baking paper
baking dish
tray/board to serve on covered in alfoil if needed
freezer room
mixmaster
MAKING THE CAKE
Make up the batter above and divide into 7 bowls (yes, 7 layers for a 6 layer cake) – if your mixmaster isn’t big enough to accommodate that number of ingredients then make it up in two batches.
Take your first bowl and divide that batter in to 6 smaller bowls of cups. Get your food dyes and very very slowly (one drop at a time) add colours to each bowl until you have worked out the shades you want for your cake.
Getting the right mix takes time and you don’t want to colour each bowl only to find out you’re not happy with the strength of the colours. Once you are happy with your colours, go through and colour the other six bowls accordingly.
Tip: Using gel die will give you the best colour but you don’t need to use gel, the supermarket variety is fine too.
Bake each cake for 15minutes (we have an older oven so it took closer to 18mins per cake). If you aren’t icing them immediately, wrap in alfoil or clingwrap and place in freezer.
MAKE THE ICING
To make the icing put your room temperature copha into a mixing bowl and beat – slowly add the sifted icing sugar until you have a buttercream consitency. You will need to add water to the mixture as you go along to help create the right consistency. You are only going to need a thin layer of this icing so you can be liberal with the water – the goal is to have a buttercream feel to it that’s easy to work with – the water is the key to getting the copha to work like that.
Why copha? Copha is white which will give your cake the best effect. Butter will obviously make your icing more of a yellow colour.
Tip: If you haven’t got your copha at room temperature put it in the microwave to melt. It won’t soften in the same way as butter but don’t worry that some of the copha will melt completely during this process – as long as you have enough to cream then the melted copha will work in the same way as the water.
ICE THE CAKE
In order to stop the cream from absorbing into the cake and losing that lovely white center look you will “crumb coat” each separate cake before putting it together. Crumb coating is when you put a very thin layer of icing over the cake to stop the crumbs from getting into the icing and making it look speckled.
Tip: Before icing, chill each layer of cake in the freezer – this makes them easier to work with and ice.
Take your first layer of cake from the freezer, take a knife and spread a very thin layer of the icing all over it – you want to cover it completely (don’t worry about the sides at this stage) before adding the cream.
Complete for each layer, remembering to crumb coat both sides of each cake before adding the cream.
Once you have a completed cake, crumb coat the top and sides of the cake – this will help stop any crumbs from getting into the final cream finish.
If you aren’t serving the cake on the same day cover the cake and put it into the fridge and do the final step on the day of the party.
The final step is to cover the entire cake with a layer of thick, whipped cream. You can add some sugar and vanilla to taste to the cream if you wish. Whip the cream until it’s quite thick, you want it to hold its shape and be easy to work with. Cover the cake with the cream and voila! Finished…a simple, beautiful rainbow cake!
You can find more tips on how to throw a circus party here.
YOUR CHANCE TO WIN!
I use a handmixer to bake with and thanks to KitchenAid, I am very please to have a beautiful Kitchen Aid Artisan hand mixer (RRP $119.95) in pink to giveaway to one lucky reader. Perhaps you can use it to make your own rainbow cake?
If you’d like to win, please leave a comment telling me what you love to bake.
You don’t have to share this competition on facebook, twitter or stumbleupon but I’d love it if you did.
Ts & Cs.
1. Winners must have an Australian address for delivery.
2. Prize will be drawn on Wed 30th November.
3. One entry per household.
This competition is listed at Online Competitions
Incoming search terms:
- carnival party
- circus theme party ideas
- rainbow cake recipe
- circus carnival party
- circus party invites
Mummble
Stitch Baby + Kids