“Somewhere, over the Rainbow CAKE…”

Continuing my fun with gel colouring, I present a rainbow cake!  You should have seen the expressions when I cut this baby open. 😀

Guaranteed to put you in a colourful mood...

The cake mix used was a double batch of my super-secret butter cake mix (sorry, I’m not in a sharing mood tonight), but I’m sure you can find a butter cake mix of your own.

I used a 24cm spring-form pan, which was coated in butter, then breadcrumbs, since I’m paranoid the cake will stick.  You can omit the breadcrumbs (it does make icing the thing easier), just know that it’s a failsafe method for getting a perfect cake out, well, perfectly.

Bread and buttered

As for baking times – I did a double batch of cake mix (7 cups of batter total).  Took 1.5 hours to cook, at 180 degrees.  Keep checking the cake.  When it’s fully cooked a wooden skewer inserted into the middle will come out cleanly.

OK! ONTO THE RAINBOW PART!

Once you have your cake all mixed up, grab a 250ml/1 cup measuring cup.

Pre-flour mix - add flour and then parcel it out

Scoop 1 cup measurements into seven separate bowls.

Divide into 7 bowls, more-or-less equally

Important – use GEL food colouring.  Don’t get me wrong, I know that the liquid stuff is easier to source and cheaper ($1 at Coles, last time I checked, FYI), nevertheless, it just doesn’t compare, colour-wise, to the gel stuff.  These are my favourite little things in the kitchen at the moment (apart from my candy thermometer, stay posted for that adventure).

My go-to food colouring. Love.

So!  If you’re serious about using pretty colours in your baking, go buy this.  Depending on where you go, it’ll set you back about $25.  Woooorth it?

Mario sugarpaste decorations, made with gel colouring

Heck yes!

BACK ON TOPIC…

Do this:

"Violet! You're turning..."

"...Violet!"

Do it six more times, adjusting the colouring gel accordingly.

Red and yellow and pink and green, purple and orange and blue...I challenge you to not have the rainbow song stuck in your head while mixing these up.

Note the above picture for correct rainbow order: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.

Or:

• Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain.
• Mr. Roy G. Biv

for fans of mnemonic techniques.

Once this step is completed, it’s time to assemble the cake! (And pre-heat the oven.  180ºC.)

Layer layer layer

Start with one end or the other, no real big deal.  Place the entire blob in the middle of the cake tin with a spatula.  Smooth it out just a little, then place the next one on top.  Repeat.  It will start spreading out on it’s own.  Just make sure you don’t stab into it – you’ll lose the layered look and it will become psychedelic cake, as opposed to rainbow cake.

Smooth and ready to go

Bang the cake on your counter top a couple of times, just to make sure there are no air bubbles hiding in there.  Twice will do.  No, really, stop dropping your cake!  …Jeez.

Bake the cake for the set amount of time (remember, I used 2x the mix, took 1.5 times the usual to bake).

When baked, invert onto wire rack to cool a little.

Inverted

See, what did I tell you about getting a perfect cake with breadcrumbs?  😉

When it has cooled a little, you can flip it back over and trim the bottom if came out a little top-heavy like mine:

Top side of the cake - needs trimming

...trimmed. Note: The off-cuts make a great snack while you're icing...

A note here: if you don’t want to ice it you could lop off a bit of both the top and the bottom of the cake and have it as is – the colour would be decoration enough.  But, as I’m a glutton for procraster-baking, and it’s close cousin, procraster-icing, I decided to decorate.

Used my buttercream icing recipe, but did it the lazy way since this wasn’t being piped or used in any other way then as a base.  Throw 175g (soft!) butter in the mixer, mix for a while, dump one cup unsifted (OMG) icing sugar in, scrape sides, mix again, throw other cup icing sugar in, scrape, mix, scrape, add milk and your choice of food colour until it looks like this:

Sky blue icing...see where this is going? 🙂

Ice your (cooled) cake.  Remember to flip it back over to the bottom of the cake side – it’s smoother.

Iced! Refrigerate and flatten with baking paper to achieve really smooth and level icing.

Now you can do what you like!  I still have some sugar paste / fondant that I made a while back (stuff keeps FOREVER), so I used this to make some clouds.

See what I did there? (Note, next time I'm using fondant for the rainbow also - I just got lazy. Not happy with the sprinkles rainbow at all.)

You could also use icing to pipe a pretty rainbow on the top.

Reveal!

It’s fun seeing the expression on everyone’s face when they’re presented with this cake.  I swear, they all reverted back to being 10 year olds.

Ready to eat

So there you have it.  Yummy rainbow cake.  Will keep for about 3 days in cake tray or airtight container – do not refrigerate.  The icing will go all hard and yucky.  Enjoy!

Somewhere over the rainbow

Way up high,

There’s a land that I heard of

Once in a lullaby.

Somewhere over the rainbow

Skies are blue,

And the dreams that you dare to dream

Really do come true.

Someday I’ll wish upon a star

And wake up where the clouds are far

Behind me.

Where troubles melt like lemon drops

Away above the chimney tops

That’s where you’ll find me.

Somewhere over the rainbow

Bluebirds fly.

Birds fly over the rainbow.

Why then, oh why can’t I?

If happy little bluebirds fly

Beyond the rainbow

Why, oh why can’t I?

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