The weather has been terrible here for the last few days. We’ve not had any lovely snow like the rest of the country, it’s just been rain and freezing winds. Dull.
So, what do you do when you need a little ray of sunshine? You bake, of course; and everyone knows what you get when the sun shines through the rain… RAINBOWS!
I’ve always been a fan of those beautiful rainbow layer cakes but I don’t really DO big cakes myself… So, I set out to create my own version using something I know very well, a Nordic Ware bundt tin!
OK, so it’s not really layered as such but it’s definitely multi coloured and there’s even a bit of a rainbow shape going on too. I love it.
I’ve flavoured this lovely cake with Panettone flavouring by Beau and finished with marshmallow buttercream and some deliciously retro ‘hundreds and thousands’ which I think suit the cake perfectly.
You’re going to need to use paste or gel colours in this cake. The liquid ones in little bottles from the supermarket will either appear dull when baked or will taint the flavour and alter the texture of the cake as you’ll need to use large quantities. I used the Wilton paste icing colours which I bought from Lakeland, but I believe Asda now sell a range of them too. Sugarflair are the cake decorator’s ‘go to’ but they can be quite expensive if you don’t need to use them often. The most ‘pure’ colouration will come from buying the correct colours in, but you could just buy red, yellow and blue and mix the others up if you want to keep the cost down.
The eagle eyed among you may be able to see that there are some colours missing from my rainbow… I ditched indigo and violet and just tried to mix up a generic purple. It was all going well until I remembered I’m actually colourblind and can’t see purple! I ended up with another blue, so Chris tells me, so there’s no purple at all in this! Oops!
It does take a lot of time and effort to get the colours right, and there IS a lot of washing up; I think it’s completely worth it though to bring sunshine into your kitchen on a dull day.
Rainbow Bundt Cake
A delightfully bright bundt cake, with a rainbow inside!
Ingredients
-
For the cake:
- 6 medium eggs
- The same weight in self-raising flour
- The same weight in golden caster sugar
- The same weight in butter or baking spread
- 1-2tsp natural flavouring of your choice
- An assortment of paste or gel food colours For the frosting:
- 75g butter
- 150g icing sugar (I used golden icing sugar for colour and flavour)
- 100g marshmallow fluff or marshmallow creme To finish:
- Assorted rainbow sprinkles!
Instructions
1. In order to bake a perfectly light and airy sponge cake, you need to use equal quantities of eggs, flour, butter or baking spread and sugar. The easiest way to do this is to weigh the eggs and then add the same weight of the remaining ingredients. Place all in a bowl and mix together until combined and smooth. Add the flavouring and stir to incorporate.2. Divide the mixture equally between 7 bowls, adding colouring to 6 of the bowls and leaving the 7th without any colour.3. Once the colours are mixed, start to add them to your greased and floured pan starting with the plain mix. You need to make sure that each layer completely covers the previous one in the tin; I found the best way was to dollop a layer all over and smooth around the tin with the back of a spoon.4. Once all the colours are in, give the tin a few sharp taps on a cloth on the worktop to release any large air bubbles in the mixture. Bake at 160ºC for 45-60 minutes or until cooked through.5. When cooked, remove from the oven and leave to cool for 10 mins in the tin then turn out onto a cooling rack and leave until completely cold.6. For the frosting, just combine all the ingredients with a mixer (or by hand if you’re feeling strong!) until light and fluffy and there are no lumps.7. When the cake is completely cold, smear the frosting over as desired and decorate with sprinkles!
Details
Prep time: Cook time: Total time: Yield: 1 bundt cakeNow, who’s doing the washing up ?!
For more great recipes for multicoloured cakes, take a look at:
- Easy 6-Layer Rainbow Cake by Kerry Cooks
- Neopolitan Bundt Cake by BakingQueen74
Wowsers! I'm not usually a big food colouring fan, but that's impressive! Certainly would cheer up a grey day, that's for sure 🙂
Thanks Helen. I try to steer clear of food colouring myself if I can and allow the natural colours of the food to show through, but sometimes you just NEED that boost of colour 🙂
Kevin it's bloody brilliant, well done! I love the last pic with all the bowls stacked up too, I bet you had great fun making this 🙂
Janie x
Thank you Janie! I really love that pic too. The colours look so vibrant against the white of the bowls. I did have a lot of fun, though cutting that first slice was a bit daunting as I didn't know what I'd find inside…
Do love a bit of food colouring!
As I said to Helen, I try to steer clear of it but sometimes needs must. I do love the vibrancy 🙂
This looks amazing!!! Want to make this! Thanks for the recipe 🙂 x
meimei xx
http://www.meimeisays.co.uk
Thank you meimei. If you do make it, I'd love it if you would share some pics of it with me!
This looks amazing, thanks for sharing the recipe, I think I'll be attempting this next weekend x
Oooh, exciting. I hope you'll share pics with me if you make it!
For a start lovely images, I can actually TASTE the cake already 🙂 so yummy! I've never made bundt cake so I must try it as it looks so nice! Xx
Cheers, Emma! Photography is one of my interests so I'm always trying to make my photos better and better. It's great to hear you like them.
If you've never tried a bundt before, you MUST! Remember, if it's not baked in a Nordic Ware tin then it's not a bundt 😉
I love this – the outside really disguises the psychedelia inside. And I say go for it with food colouring!!
Thanks Stuart. I really wanted to hide the colours, so looks like I did a good job 🙂