7 Layer Rainbow Birthday Cake

Hello there!
Happy Monday! (even though I'm not a fan of Monday's)
This is the birthday cake that I made for my Dad's birthday (His birthday was in April but I found this draft so I thought I might as well post it). To be honest, this is a HUGE recipe to attempt. It isn't technical, just time consuming but then again, the finished product it well worth it. The other thing is that you don't have to use this exact cake batter, you can use any cake batter of your choice as long as it is a basic/white cake batter (in other words, no chocolate or strawberry cake (it will alter the colours)). One final thing before we start, this recipe is a double batch, however there is still batter left over afterwards so I will include a small recipe at the bottom for that extra batter.
So lets begin, for the cake you will need 4 cups of self raising flour, 1 cup of butter, 2 cups of sugar (caster or regular), 4 eggs, 2 tsp vanilla essence and 1 1/2 cups of milk.
For the butter-cream you will need 250g butter and 500g icing sugar (confectioners sugar or powdered sugar). You will also need marshmallow fondant, there are heaps of recipes out there and I might just post on myself in the future!

To start off, preheat the oven to 160°C. Then cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Next add in the eggs and vanilla essence and mix till lump free. Then add in all of the milk, mix slowly (I say this because the milk takes time to mix into the batter and can splash everywhere). And finally, sift in the flour and fold until a thick batter is formed.

Now comes the time consuming part, colouring. I used 100 grams of batter per colour but you can use as much or as little as you want. The colours I made were red, orange, pink, yellow, green, blue and purple (not quite the rainbow,/ but close enough) and you can use whatever colours you want.
Line and grease the cake tin you want to use and cook each colour separately, this way you can stack them and make defined layers. Basically, all you need to do is pour one colour into the greased and lined cake tin, smooth out the top, cook it, let it cool slightly, pop it out of the tin and repeat for the rest of the colours. The cakes took about 10 - 15 minutes to cook and 10 minutes to cool (TIP: You will know when the cakes are done because when a skewer is poked into the cakes and removed, it will come out clean)

Meanwhile, make the butter-cream. It is really simple, just whip the butter until it is white or off-white, add the icing sugar in and whip a bit more (You can add some vanilla essence if you like). And tada! Butter-cream!

Once the cakes have cooled, grab a knife and slice off the top of one layer until it is flat and even BUT try to slice off as little as possible. Repeat this with all the layers to help with the assembly.

Now it's time to assemble the cake, order the layers however you want (I just went for the rainbow order) and place the first one on a plate. Lather some butter-cream on and smooth it out. Place another layer on and repeat until you have reached the last layer. Carefully cut around the sides of the cake to make it all even and flat, repeat on the top of the cake as well. Then, using the remaining butter-cream, spread a thick layer around the top and sides as this will help the fondant stick. (NOTE: You can always just leave it as this however the fondant adds the element of surprise for when someone cuts into it!) Place the cake in the fridge for 30-45 minutes.

Spread your working surface with a mix of cornflour and icing sugar. Roll out the fondant on the surface till it's fairly thin and lay it over the cake. This bit is kinda hard to explain but I will attempt (There are plenty of tutorials on YouTube though). First, smooth out the top of the cake. Then slowly work your way down the sides of the cake till the whole thing is smoothed out. Transfer to a serving platter and boom! You have a rainbow cake!

EXTRA BATTER RECIPE
So lets say you have extra batter of all 7 colours, but its not enough for each of them to make an individual cake, no problem! Line and grease a cake tin and pour in the colours one by one. Once they're all in the tin, grab a skewer (or any other kind of pointy object, go crazy and experiment!) and just start swirling it in the cake batter to make a marble pattern. Bake in a 160°C oven until a skewer is brought out of the middle of the cake clean (Cooking times will vary depending on the amount of batter left).

Although this is a very large cake, it didn't last long so no pictures, buuuuuut google images has thousands hehehe....
Till next time, keep on cooking!
Kat xx

So umm...... It's November

Hey guys!
So....... It's November
Oops
Year 9 is SO much more stressful than I ever imagined..... Assignment after assignment after assignment ugh!
Well not to worry, school is finished and cooking is starting back up again! (Plus I figured out a few handy tips for when I'm away to keep updating!)
I am also so close to buying a very good quality camera which means better photos!

Oh and happy thanksgiving to any American readers.... Keep on cooking!

Kat xx