Rainbow cake?

[cat811]

Has anyone got and tried a recipe for one of those rainbow cakes (with all the coloured layers)? I've found one on BBC Good food but all the reviews say it tasted horrible, and was rubbery and dense. Has anyone made this before and had it taste nice? If so can you point me in the direction of a good recipe?!

Sorry cant help but wanted to mark my place as DD has requested a rainbow cake for her birthday!

Yes I made it. It tasted nice - light but very sweet because it is an angel cake and has more sugar in it. Also because of the masses of buttercream I used!

I used this recipe www.whisk-kid.com/2009/08/say-it-with-cake.html and used normal buttercream rather than the kind they suggest here.

Good luck!

I haven't tried one myself. They look amazing but the amount of food colouring required to achieve that depth of colour must surely affect the taste. I think it would be a 'just for dhow' cake rather than one you'd actually want to eat!

I've made the good food one and it works really well because the recipe ensures the layers hardly rise and therefore stay level. It is a little rubbery/ dense but we all enjoyed it anyway. If you aren't too worried about keeping the cake very perfect looking you can just make rainbow cake with Victoria sponge recipe. We've done rainbow swirls ( pop a blob of one colour in the cake tin, dollop the next colour on etc until the tin is full. It sorts itself out, you don't need to smooth it down) or make several thin cakes following the instructions in the good food recipe.
If you buy gel paste colours it doesn't effect the flavour at all.
I wouldn't put nearly as much buttercream on as the good food recommends. I made normal buttercream instead of the cream cheese one and used a thin scrape on each layer. Was still pretty sweet.

Use gel paste colours, and a bog standard victoria sponge recipe.
I did a marble cake with 5 colors for DS2 birthday like this, and it was fine - but you need the decent colours, or they go very wishy washy.

Asda sell one, for £15 I think. It looks quite light rather than rubbery but the colours are a bit murky, especially the blue. I fear these are one of those things better in theory than in practice, but no doubt much desired by many DCs.....how about a cake stand of all different coloured individual cakes??

Def gel colours. I tried the gel black from tesco. I can't remember the name but was a yellow box. It just made grey ( icing) so maybe check reviews for good gel colours. ( obv you won't put black in the rainbow but I thought it spoke volumes about its ability to produce vibrant colours.

I made a minion cake with regular food colouring but yellow just looked like regular cake and blue looked green-y despite using a "white" cake recipie!

The Wilton Gel Paste colours are amazing. I made a rainbow cake using my normal Victoria sponge recipe and it was delicious, colours were vibrant and layers light and fluffy.

I use gel colours and it doesn't affect taste. It is now compulsory for my dc and even their friends! I use a normal sponge mix and it always tastes fine. I just layer mine one on top of another, they don't mingle but you do get a curve- like a real rainbow. I do red on the bottom working up to purple, don't worry about spreading all the way to edge as that way the purple etc will sink down and the red go up the sides. You need more red, orange etc than blue, violet. I mix red& yellow and blue & violet for orange and indigo. The gel pastes cost a bit more but I wouldn't use anything else for rainbow cakes or icing now.

Are you doing rainbow jelly too?

Good idea about rainbow jelly!
3birthdaybunnies - so did you just layer it all before you coked it? Most ones I have seen are cooked separately and then sandwiched together with buttercream. This adds new choices into the equation now!!

cooked rather than coked...!

I did this one for DD1.
(hope link works, I'm on phone)
I think there is a pic of it on my profile.
Only problem we had was that we all ended up with green tinged poo!

I sort of made it - not so many layers and did some plain and some chocolate as I didn't have enough colours. You do need A LOT of colouring but the oetekker gels didn't seem to affect the taste. I think I reduced the sugar as well.

I made one for the first time this Sunday and it went perfectly and I was so proud of it.

I used a basic Victoria sponge recipe, gel colours (the whole tube of each colour) and did the swirly version rather than the layered one. For the icing I used my carrot cake topping (tub of mascarpone, tub of soft cheese, and 150g icing sugar) as I wanted it to be white rather than cream colour. I also put mini smarties on the top.

I based it on this one here

It was great (although expensive and full of colourings)!!!

I did Victoria sponge and Wilton gel colouring, the gel colouring is so fab you hardly need any so you don't get any taint just a vibrant colour.

Yes, just spread out the first layer all over, then second layer as much as you can without mixing too much with 1st layer etc. I do red on bottom, this then rises up the sides a little, etc. Once cooked I turn cake upsidedown and so when cut you see a curving rainbow. I can't link on my phone but there will be a few like it if you google images. From pictures I've seen of other ones if you are stacking cakes it will get v tall and I imagine each layer won't be v thick so when cooked not v moist. It is also more flexible for shaped cake tins - e.g. made fairy mushroom house with rainbow cake in a pudding basin for curved mushroom top, or a number shape tin. It also takes less baking time and fewer tins to wash, although however you do it factor in extra time to mix colours, especially if you have 'help'.

For rainbow jellies I get mini transparent plastic shot glasses (poundland), that you do need to do in stages. Mix the blackcurrant, add about 5ml or so to each glass laid out on tray. Freeze ~1-2hrs, make another batch for blue I mix a little yellow and green then add aforementioned blue gel paste before adding water. Then work up through lime, lemon, orange and strawberry, freezing at each stage on the way. Once all frozen they can be stacked in freezer. I usually have a jelly day a week or so before the party. They are so small that I usually just take them out of freezer just before party, they defrost by the time you get to food this time of year. With shot glasses you only need about half a packet of jelly for 20. If you want to send them home really hyper them add lemonade instead of water to the jelly- makes fizzy jelly.

I only use a small amount of gel paste and it works fine. I can't copy the full link on phone but there is one on www.playinghouseblog.com which looks similar, although I would used more red and less violet and always put red on bottom then turn the right way. You do need to try to spread each layer out a bit, otherwise it turns out blotchy as you can see in the tutorial which she links to. Tortoise is right about the poo!

I alway use this one has never let me down, and am often asked to make them as they are yummy.

HoneyDragon, did your rainbow cake become so colourful? I tried to do this once and the colours were not that beautiful. On the contrary they were very light. :)

I did a victoria sponge with gel colouring too, and it turned out fabulous. colours were very vibrant and the flavour wasn't affected at all

Yes, very bright. I've done a few, but always use Sugarflair pastes.

This is inside ds's lego cake

Pippa has one. Pm me if this is still of interest. Esther walker of food blog heroine rate it.

Thank you so much for posting this OP - I want to make a rainbow star cake for my DD's birthday and this has given me loads of inspiration!