Richard’s Rainbow Cake. Request bake #1

The original: The Whisk Kid
The interactive: Sweetapolita
The British: Rhubarb & Rose
The sprinkled: Bourbonatrix
The coconut: Sunshine’s Baking (needs translating)
The epic: Darius, via twitter

And finally, the recipe:

Rainbow cake

(from Sweetapolita and The Wisk Kid)

226g butter, room temp
466 g sugar
5 egg whites, room temp – it’s easiest if you have these all in a jug or bowl in advance
2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
3375g plain flour
4 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt if your butter is not salted
355 g milk, warmed for 30 sec in microwave to bring to room temp
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple gel / paste food coloring (or you can mix the colours you have like paints!)

+ 1 x cream cheese icing and 2 x royal icing packs

Preheat the oven to 350F / 180C . Grease and line as many cake tins as you have. I used loaf tins but the original recipe uses 9 inch rounds.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.

Cream the sugar and butter, then add the egg whites and add them a little at a time. Add the vanilla and mix until fully incorporated. Then, alternating between wet and dry, add the milk and flour mixture in two parts.

Divide the batter between 7 bowls (or 6 if you’re not planning to differentiate between blue and indigo. I did though, so I shall frown on you if you don’t) To do this you need to find your inner science-chef and weigh the whole batter, divide by number of layers and weigh out accordingly. It’s important if you want it to look even.

Colour each bowlful of batter. I use cocktail sticks to dip into the colouring pots and then into the batter. You could use teaspoons but to be quite honest there’s enough washing up already. If you are in any doubt that the colour is not intense enough, make it brighter. Pour the batter into the baking tin and thwack it on the worktop to make sure it is flat. Bake for 10-15mins.

When you remove them from the oven, let them rest on the cooling rack, in the pan, for ten minutes. Then flip, cover, and stash them in the fridge or freezer to cool quickly.

Lemon Cream Cheese Icing

175g Cream cheese
450g Icing sugar, sifted
125g Unsalted butter, at room temperature
Zest of 1 lemon

Throw it all in a bowl and beat. A lot. Until fluffy and smooth

Assembly
Decide on your order and stack them up, spreading a thin layer of cream cheese icing in between each one. spread more icing around the edges until roughly smoothed over the entire surface. This is the crumb layer. Put the whole lot in the freezer for 10 mins. Meanwhile, roll out the royal icing. When the time is up drape the royal icing over the top and smooth down. If you have one of those nifty icing-smoothing-paddles, even better. If you want to draw on it like Sweetapolita’s doodle-cake then you can get the icing pens online or at Jane Asher‘s shop

Finally, stand back and think…” oh, that’s it then”. Feel a little exhausted and underwhelmed. Now cut a slice…..WAHOOOO.. that looks brilliant!