The Rainbow Cake

On the 12th of April I turned the magical age of 23. The saddest part is that the Taylor Swift song '22' doesn't apply to me anymore, but that doesn't make me stop singing and dancing to it when I’m having a solo pyjama party. The best part is that I'm a step closer to adulthood. At least that's what I hope.

One of the things I really wanted to do this year was making the most amazing birthday cake and I'm very happy to share the end result with you. If you follow me on Instagram you'll probably have seen this colourful creation before but I made a rainbow cake! Yes you read that right, six layers of fluffy cake with the best cream cheese frosting you will ever taste. 
I followed the rainbow cake recipe from the book Tanya Bakes and switched some things around ingredient wise, since she went for seven layers of cake and butter frosting. Another thing that I changed: the time. It's lovely that cookbooks say how much time you will be spending whilst making it, but it's the biggest lie I've ever seen. I always spend way more time and this was definitely the longest I have ever been in a kitchen because I spend about 9 hours (!) baking this cake. It was totally worth it though, best cake I've ever eaten!

What do you need for a six layer rainbow cake?

For the sponges:
580g softened butter
580g caster sugar
580g self-raising flower
11 eggs
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 teaspoons baking powder
6 food colourings (purple, blue, green, yellow, orange and red)

For the frosting:
500g good quality cream cheese
300g softened butter
4 teaspoons vanilla extract
300g icing sugar

Oven: 180C/350F/GM4

First, preheat your oven and grease and line your cake tins with baking paper. I used two cake tins at the time, since I didn't want to buy six and my oven is not big enough anyways. It will take a bit longer this way though.

Take a large bowl and cream together your butter and sugar until it's light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla extract and mix it all together. Then last but not least, add the baking powder and self-raising flour to get a smooth batter.

Split the mixture between 6 bowls and add a different food colour to each bowl. Keep adding some drops until you are happy with the colour of the mixture. Scoop the colourful batter out of the bowls and into your cake tins. So either scoop the mixture in six cake tins or do it two at a time.
Bake them in the oven for about 20 minutes. When they are fully cooked and fluffy you get them out and let them cool down on a wire rack. I cut off the top bit of the cakes to make them even and perfect for layering.

For the icing: cream the butter in a bowl until it's pale and fluffy. Add the cream cheese and vanilla extract and mix it together. Slowly add the icing sugar and mix again until you have a thick, smooth mixture. Use half the icing for the layers and the other half for the outside of the cake.

Layer the cakes with some icing in between and then ice the outside of the cake. Make sure that it looks as neat and smooth as possible. -mine doesn't look as pretty as Tanya's version but I'm already happy that it turned out okay.- Add some sprinkles or cake crumbs on top and your cake is done!

I am going to be honest here and say that this is the best cake I've ever eaten. The best cake prize always belonged to the red velvet cake from De Drie Graefjes bakery in Amsterdam, but they hopped down to second place. This cake is just so fluffy and moist –I know everyone hates this word but I don’t mind that much- and the frosting makes it even better. Cream cheese frosting is so much better than butter frosting in my opinion! 
I do advise to have a lot of people over when you make this cake because it's a BIG cake. We actually weighted the cake and it's 4,5kg (!). Also not the most healthy option but hey it's my bday so if there is a day where you can eat lots of crappy food it's now!

Want something easier? Try these salted Nutella cookies or other baking recipies I posted!

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