How to make a Rainbow Cake?

[BaconAndAvocado]

Went too birthday party recently and was very impressed with the cake, a "rainbow" cake apparently.

Are they easy to make and are there any food colourings without all the E numbers?

(As you can see I'm a Cakes and Bakes newby!)

You can do a deep layer cake, each layer a different colour, or make a batch of cake mix, split it into bowls then colour. Put in dollops in the centre of a round tin.
Use only gel colours.

www.omnomicon.com/rainbowcake

If you want a step by step guide with photos the Pink Whisk has one www.thepinkwhisk.co.uk/2011/09/how-to-make-a-rainbow-cake.html Baked a number of her recipes and they've all turned out well .

Hope the link works - on phone!

I made this one for DS 4th birthday.

It wasn't that difficult but you do need gel/paste food colourings. And I weighed 5 equals bowls to colour so each layer was the same.

I did one for DP's 40th. It looked great, but you need LOADS of food colouring in order for it to be bright when you cut in to it. I used the gel paste.

Now I can see how it's done!

Where's the best cheapest place to get the food colouring gels?

this one was recently in BBC Good Food mag - I haven't made it but the recipe looks easy enough to follow! :)

Wow, that looks so amazing and probably nothing like my final creation!

I got gel paste in the supermarket. It must be gel and not liquid to a) get the vivid colour and b) not add too much liquid to the cake mixture. I'm not sure any of them are E number free though.

You can get the dr oetker gels in most supermarkets, I have seen them in morrisons and Sainsbury's. a tip is that when the cake layer comes out, it is quite brown in colour, itviscwhen you cut through you get all the colours. Don't worry that it has not worked!

I got these ones from Amazon and need very little food gel to get a strong colour.

I have Home2Bake brand and Dr Oetker. The Home2Bake are far better than the Dr Oetker as the colours are brighter and you don't need to use as much.

I found the dr oteker gels to be rubbish. They weren't bright enough and didn't stand out at all. I had 'create a cake' gels from morrisons in all the colours I needed except orange and purple, so bought dr oteker in these colours. I used more gel than it said and the orange looked yellow and the purple turned out pink. Really disappointing, so maybe do a trial run if your not sure of the colours. I just used a normal cake mix and used 3 eggs for 6oz split between 2 colours. That made quite a tall cAke when all assembled.

I made the good food magazine Easter one recently. covered with fondant and did butter cream. didnt use the Dr ottetars (despite buying them all? as everyone says they were shite).
it was actually v v easy and looked v good..

Feel quite excited now about making one!

One thing that often happens when I bake cakes is that the tops aren't flat, which I would obviously need to get the right loom on a rainbow cake.

Any tips Top Cakemeisters?

My mother taught me to make a well in the top of a sandwich cake to help it rise evenly. A dint, mind, not all the way down. I got told off by my Home Ec. Teacher for suggesting that she did this during a demo when I was in Y7!

Re domes on cakes OP wet a piece of material cut to slightly bigger than the circumference of the cake (I rip one of my many old muslins) then pin so it covers the tin. It works and cake will be flat (it domes because the outside parts heat up quicker because of the tin). Using silicone 'tins' also works apparently. HTH

I'm in Argentina, we don't have gel colours. Will it work at all if I use the liquid ones?? As it is I have to mix my own orange and violet.

Hi frutilla,

Are you in Cap Fed? www.donaclara.com.ar/ on Corrientes certainly does colours in tubs, which might help?

Liquid colours don't work very well because the colour is not strong enough. Also adding too much liquid changes the consistency of the mixture and makes it too sloppy.

Thanks must that sounds like a top tip!

Going to have a bash at my first Rainbow Cake in a few weeks when my brother and family come a-visiting! Wish me luck!

Cannot specify how much sugarflair colours are the best food colourings! You can get them in many places online, I tend to just go for eBay. You will never get strong colours from 'natural' food colourings.

Sorry to hijack thread, but came on here with a question about making a rainbow cake and found this thread! My question is: can you just buy yellow, blue and red paste colours, and mix them to get purple, green and orange? Or do you need to buy all the separate colours (which would be ££££)?

Thank you!

You certainly don't need to buy seperate colours! Mis them of course! :-)

*mix