In every amateur ardent baker's life there comes a moment when they decide to bake a rainbow cake. In my not so long but ever so ardent baker career it came several months ago when I pumped into the photo of a perfect rainbow cake on the interwebs. At that very moment the "I'm going to bake a rainbow cake" item went on at least one of my many (and ever so growing number of) lists. Months passed by, new items were added to the list, other recipes were tried out and made it into my recipe book, and the poor little rainbow cake project was forgotten.
But then, at the end of February the perfect event presented itself on a silver platter: my friend Meli's birthday was coming up. Since it was her 25th, not to mention that she has just turned into a doctor of law, she most certainly deserved some decent celebration. And what else cries decent celebration if not one perfect rainbow cake, eh? Hence, it was decided and the project was given the nod of approval.
First I started digging for the recipe. Quite quickly I realized that there was pretty much only one rainbow cake recipe floating around on the internet, and it was by Martha Stewart on Martha Stewart's website. (Who would have thought that Her Majesty, the Domestic Goddess Martha Stewart would make something as childish rad and bohemian as a rainbow cake? Oh, wait, she did not! It originally comes from this blogger who appeared on the Martha Stewart Show.)
Anyhow, I used the following recipe, quoted from Whisk Kid's blog:
White Cake (but not really)
2 sticks (226 g) butter, room temp
2 1/3 c (426 g) sugar
5 egg whites, room temp
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 c (426 g) flour
4 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 1/2 c (355 ml) milk, warmed for 30 sec in microwave to bring to room temp
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple GEL food coloring. Liquid will not be vibrant enough!
Preheat the oven to 350F degrees. Oil and line how ever many 9” cake pans you have (I have three and I just reused them).
Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
Cream the sugar and butter, then add the egg whites (I cracked them all into one bowl) and add them a little at a time. Add the vanilla and mix until fully incorporated. Then, alternating between wet and dry, add the milk and flour mixture in two parts.
Divide the batter amongst 6 bowls (It's about 1 c each, but I did it by weight. Weigh your mixing bowl before you begin adding ingredients and then subtract the weight of the bowl from the final measurement after the batter is completed. Divide that number by six and add that weight of batter to each bowl), and then whisk a fair amount of the appropriate food color into each bowl. Keep in mind that the color of the unbaked batter will be the color of the baked batter. Pour into the pans and bake for 15 minutes each.
When you remove them from the oven, let them rest on the cooling rack, in the pan, for ten minutes. Then flip, cover, and stash them in the fridge to cool quickly.
So basically you make sponge cake (piskóta) batter (without the egg yolks!), divide it into as many parts as many layers and colors you want in your cake, color each portion with the food coloring, then bake them one by one. It is, indeed, time consuming, although one portion of colored butter requires only about 10 minutes of baking time. Yet, the entire procedure is not at all difficult or tricky.
There was only one kind of - liquid - food coloring at tesco's, and I did not feel like hunting for gel coloring at other shops, so I bought that one in red, yellow, green, blue, and orange colors, and they turned out perfectly. Even though we weren't supposed to use more than a few drops of coloring in such small batter portion, we used about 20-25 ml out of the entire 30 ml one little tub holds. The colors came out bright and beautiful (and neither did we end up in the hospital with food color- poisoning, nor were any rainbows shining out of our butts), the spongecake was smooth and yummy, although it was a bit too sweet. I only used 2 cups of sugar instead of 2 and 1/3, and even that was way too much. One cup is more than enough; especially since the cream between the layers and on the top of the cake is also quite sweet.
For the filling I decided not to go with Martha and the Lemony Swiss Meringue Buttercream. Even though it sounded very classy and exotic, it is just a simple butter cream (which by the way I loath) that would have required no less than 9 (!) egg whites, half a kilo of butter, and almost two cups of sugar. Instead I went with the frosting of my good old but oh so heavenly! carrot cake recipe. (Oh, that carrot cake! I must write about that carrot cake ASAP. Should have done it years ago.)
Here is the recipe for the frosting:
1 stick (250 g) margarine
500 g cream cheese (Hajdúsági Friss Tejszínes Sajt)
400 g powdered sugar (300g might be enough, depends on how sweet you like your cream)
Mix ingredients, and beat them until you get a smooth cream.
Once all batter are baked and filling is ready, starting with the blue batter, followed by green, yellow, orange, and red, fill the cake with the cream, then decorate its outside as well.
...and then the perfect rainbow cake was ready, turned out wonderfully, and became a big hit. It is, without a doubt, the most beautiful and colorful cake I have ever baked.
Now I can cross it off my list, while the recipe most certainly deserves a page in my recipe book.
PS: Sorry for the lame-o title. But I simply could not miss out on the opportunity of such an aweful word joke.
