There is a recipe for a rainbow cake to entertain your children for at least couple of hours, but it does require some patience. Are you in? Let's make it!
Rainbow cake to make you smile
Rainbow cake, as the name says, is a cake that with all the colors of the rainbow. This is a cake that can make you and your kids happy; it's easy, fun and you get to make a mess with all the food coloring, too! This is one of those tall cakes that reveals all the shades of the rainbow between layers of buttercream in every slice. It is beautiful to look at – and also to decorate – because even the external part requires a bit of imagination and creativity.
All the layers
There are many cake layers for this recipe, all made with different colors. All the layers, however, are made in the same way with a recipe similar to a sponge cake (though a little more moist). The mixture is divided equally into bowls and each one is assigned a color. As for the food coloring, choose between powder and liquid, though we recommend the powder option. They remain brighter and the mixture won’t become too liquidy (especially for the buttercream used in the final decoration).
A nice, dense cream
The buttercream should be very dense and compact because it must not make the cake soggy, and above all, it should keep the layers together firmly. It will also be used to decorate the outside of the cake and it must therefore remain firm and not drip (like a simple whipped cream would). The spreadable cheese and mascarpone add flavor and solidity to the mixture, while the cream makes it velvety and the food jelly makes it more dense and compact.
The Recipe: Rainbow Cake
Ingredients:
For the base: 1 cup flour, 9 oz sugar, 5 oz soft butter, 4 eggs, ½ oz yeast, 13 oz low-fat plain yogurt
Food coloring powders: red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, purple
Method:
First, cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and yogurt. Finally, add flour and yeast. Divide the mixture into six bowls and add a dye to each one. Bake the contents of each bowl in a single mold of about 16 cm diameter for 15 minutes at 350°F.
Obviously, the cake molds must all be the same size because we will later stack them. The more cake tins you have, the better – so you don’t have to cook one cake base at a time! Alternatively, use pastry circles and place them on a baking tray covered with baking parchment. Let the bases cool completely once cooked.
For the cream:
1 lb spreadable cheese, 1 lb mascarpone, 1 lb fresh cream, 7 oz icing sugar, ½ oz fish glue
Method:
Soften the fish glue in water and dissolve in a little fresh heated cream in a saucepan. Separately, whip the mascarpone cheese in a bowl with sugar. Whip spreadable cheese and the cream in another bowl. Mix everything together and add the melted fish glue. Let the cream rest in the fridge for half an hour.
Assembling the cake
Once the layers and frosting are ready, assemble everything directly on the serving plate you plan to use. Start with the red or purple base and then stack with layers of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple, or vice versa. Between one base and the other, put a fairly abundant layer of cream frosting, but remember that you will need a good amount for the external decoration, as well. Once you’ve composed the entire cake, layer after layer, cover it evenly with the cream frosting using a spatula. If there is any icing left over, color it and make small tufts along the base of the cake or on the surface.
What can children do to help?
What can children do to help you? Pretty much anything.
They can prepare the cake batter using an electric mixer.
They can divide the cake batter into bowls and add the colors.
They can make the cream frosting.
They can assemble and decorate the cake.
Sounds like a pretty fun game, right?