Rainbow layer cake

If you have been following my blog and me on twitter and facebook you will know that last  month I was very busy cooking like a crazy woman in preparation for my daughters 2nd birthday, not to mention my husband and mothers birthdays whom all fall within a week of one another.

I twitted and FB a few weeks before the event to ask for cake ideas and inspiration. I had lots of feedback thankfully which was all the inspiration I needed to find the cake I was looking for. I ended up deciding on a Donna Hay creation, one she featured in the very popular kids edition of her magazine, the Annual 7 – 2010. Naturally as I usually do I modified it and it is twice the hight of the Donna Hay’s version…. because the Foodie Goddess needs to be original in some way and the TALL cake thing is my signature so here is my little angels 2nd birthday cake!

As I mentioned the original cake is shorter, it only has 3 layers so you are going to need quite a lot of everything to make it this way.

It is quite impressive once you cut it open so it was well worth baking the 6 layers. I decided to go with just 5 in the end. Unfortunately the ingredients reflect 6 layers so you will have a layer of vanilla cake left over which makes a nice little treat with coffee anyway:) if you chose to bake it.

Ingredients for cake:

• 750g plain flour, sifted
• 3 tsp baking powder, sifted
• 550g caster sugar
• 500g butter, melted
• 8 eggs
• 750g milk
• 2 tsp vanilla essense
• Pink food colouring
• 4 tbsp cocoa, sifted

How to:

1. Preheat oven at 160°C. Lightly grease and line 6 x 20cm cake tins (or cut ingredients in half and make half at a time, I am sure not many of you have 6 tins lying around)
2. Place the flour, baking powder, sugar, butter, eggs, milk and vanilla in a large bowl and mix until combined.
3. Divide the mixture into 6 equal portions (in bowls). Set aside 2 portions. Take 2 portions and add pink food colouring (to your liking) and stir to combine. Take last 2 and combine with sifted cocoa.
4. Pour into tins and cook 3 at a time for 40-50 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Cool in tins for 5 mins before turning into wire rake to cook completely.

Ingredients for Vanilla butter icing:

• 500g butter, softened
• 640g icing sugar
• 4 tbsp milk
• 2 tsp vanilla essence

How to:

1. Place the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat for 6 – 8 mins or until pale and creamy. Add the icing sugar, vanilla and milk and beat for a further 10-15 mins or until light and fluffy.

Putting it all together:

1. Starting with pink layer, spread vanilla icing over the cake using a knife appropriate for icing. Top with chocolate layer, ice, top with vanilla layer, ice, top with chocolate layer, ice and finish with pink layer and ice the entire cake.
2. Decorate the cake with mini marshmallows.

The verdict: The cake looks impressive but for my taste it could have been tastier but at the end of the day, catering for lots of people and kids it was a good choice as it goes a long way and looks fun and classy for a little girl.

I will be blogging about some of the other sweets I cooked for the event. A little preview… White chocolate mud cupcakes

and my version of lolly bags, Rose vanilla glitter macaron lollipops.

Buon Appetito.