Rainbow Cake

Hi there. I have been away from my blog for a while now and I feel sooo bad. I have a very good reason for it but still. So I have moved based to London, United Kingdom till the end of the year. I have joined a culinary school, Le Cordon Bleu. It is thanks to this blog that I realized how much I like working in the kitchen. So I packed my bags and moved. The whole shifting continents and settling down has taken up my time.

I had made this gorgeous cake for my birthday almost a month back. It looked and tasted yummy. Before I go into the details of the caking process let me tell you the story behind this cake. A very close friend of mind always asks me to make the blueberry cheesecake on his birthday and promises that he too will make a cake for me one day. So a few days before my birthday my friends decided to come over to my place and make the promised cake. The unspoken agreement was that I will make the cake while they will pretend to make it and help with the chopping the chocolate. They didn’t turn up to make me the cake due to some reason and I decided to trouble them by making a great cake. So the pretty rainbow cake.  Evil, arn’t I ???

Well the batter for the 6 layers is the same with food color added before baking. The frosting uses lots of eggs and I thought it was a bit too sweet. The cake is a big cake with each person being served a slice with all 6 layers. When I was baking I used liquid water based color so had to use a lot in quantity to get the bright color I wanted. If you use gel based color you will get brighter colors using less color. If is a simple recipe but takes time to bake 6 times (I only had 1 baking tin the required size).

The Swiss Meringue is a bit tricky to make. In the sense when you add the butter to the almost glossy egg whites it kind of looks like it is curdling. I freaked out when I saw it because normally when that happens we need to throw away the mixture and start again. But here is supposed to look that way. You just need to continue to whisk till it becomes smooth again. I came to know that later so I stopped whisking and my meringue looked lumpy. I found the following links very useful while making the meringue. Whisk Kid and Sweetapolita.

I cut the cake at a restaurant after my birthday dinner with family and believe me when I cut it the ‘ooooohs’ and the ‘ahhhhhs’ were awesome. I cut up a slice and showed the cake with 6 layers standing and even the restaurant staff went ‘that looks amazing’. I was soooo happy it turned out well. It is a perfect cake to share with friends and family.

Rainbow Cake Layers

Serves 12 – 15

I. Rainbow Cake Layers

1 cup Butter

2 cups Sugar

5 Egg Whites

1½ tsp Vanilla Extract

3 cups All Purpose Flour

4 tsp Baking Powder

1½ cup Milk

6 food colors (I used red, green, yellow, pink, blue and orange)

II. Swiss Meringue 

14 Egg Whites

2½ Cup Powdered Sugar

2½ Cups Unsalted Butter

Method:

I. Rainbow cake Layers

Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F. Grease, dust and line 9 inch round baking tin.

In a large bowl beat the butter and sugar together till light and fluffy. This should take about 5 minutes. Add the vanilla extract and then the eggs 1 at a time and continue to whisk till the egg has been absorbed in the butter-sugar-vanilla extract mixture.

Sieve the dry ingredients, the All Purpose flour and baking powder, together. Then alternately add the dry ingredients and milk in three parts. Continue to whisk till the batter is uniformly mixed.

Divide the batter in 6 parts and whisk in a different food color in each.  Pour the batter in the baking tin and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven when done and let them cool in the baking tin for 5 minutes. Bake all 6 layers and set aside to cool.

II. Swiss Meringue

Add the sugar and egg whites in a large bowl and cook on a double boiler, while whisking constantly, till the sugar dissolves completely.

Pour the egg white-sugar mixture in an anther bowl and whisk on high speed till the mixture reaches room temperature.

Then add the soften butter, a small piece at a time and wait till the piece has been completely incorporated before adding the next one, while whisking on medium speed. Once all the butter has been added whisk on high speed for 5 minutes. Once you add the butter it will look like the meringue is curdling, it is supposed to look that way. Continue to whisk for a few minutes and it will come together. Set aside to use.

III. Assembling the cake

On a cake board set the first cake layer. Then use the swiss meringue buttercream to frost the cake. Continue till all layers have been stacked. Use the remaining meringue to cover all sides and top of the cake.

Refrigerate for a few minutes. While cutting cut a nice triangle to show off all the colorful layers.

Enjoy.