Can anyone give me tips for making a rainbow cake?

[tethersend]

Like this?

I need to make it for 30 odd kids, so will have to double(?) the quantities... What size cake tins will I need? Does anyone have a tried and tested recipe? Any recommendations for food colouring?

DD wants the top to have coloured ribbons and bows on... How the hell do I do that?! Do I still use buttercream?

I think I just need help...

I have some "don't"s., based on experience:

• don't use dr oetker food colouring, even the gels, is way too wishy washy. Get the Wilton gels from a bake shop/online
• don't use the Good Food magazine recipe- is quite dry and solid sponge. Would suggest normal cake mix, just v thin

• use quite stiff buttercream, otherwise the layers slide around (dont try to cut corners with Betty Crocker frosting as I did!)

Brilliant, thanks Artesia- just the sort of tips I'm after.

Did you trim the top off each cake before assembling?

I made this, and yes, you need to trim the tops level or the top layer will be very unstable.

Because of its height you may not need as much as you think, just give everyone a thin slice. The buttercream was very rich - next time I would use a cream cheese buttercream.

I covered mine with edible glitter for extra campiness!

Here is my effort!

That cake is so impressive.
How long did it take you to make?

Wow Alpaca, I hope I can do as well as you!

So how much/what size should I make to feed 30 children? I'd rather have too much than too little IYSWIM...

Which food colourings did you use for yours?

If you're doing it in one big batch and dividing the mix up, overestimate quantities because you can't scrape every last bit of mix out of the bowls/off the spoons and it's surprising how those bits add up. I would weigh quantities if you do it that way too, so the layers are even.

This would be a bit wasteful, but I would actually be tempted to bake 6 different standard 18-cm cakes (3 normal batches of cake mix) and then trim them down - and save the trimmings for trifle or whatever.

I just used a white chocolate ganache covering for my daughter's birthday cake, covered with fondant icing. That worked really well in terms of smoothing out bumps, and fondant is easier to pin ribbons etc. on.

Good luck - I have this in mind for my younger daughter's birthday, so a similar theme!
www.tablespoon.com/recipes/rainbow-pinata-cake/5795d355-a6a5-4030-b414-235fe9b750bb

Oh and definitely use gel food colourings. Do you have a local cake decorating shop? Ours is fantastic at providing advice if you're stuck on what to use.

Here was my effort. I cant ice, so it was a state on the outside but the layers worked fab. In fairness, it was the second cake ive ever baked.

Mine was six standard cake tins. I made three batches of cake mix, split into six equal portions, then added the colouring.

Was about thirty a foot tall so could have fed thirty. We had very very thin slivers as it is essentially three victoria spones on top.of one another.

Hi Tethers. (It's nice to be able to give you advice, you are normally the one giving me S&B advice)

I used a normal victoria sponge recipe but doubled it (or possibly tripled it I can't remember). Then split into six batches and used Sugarflair gel colours to colour. This worked well, but all the extra mixing removed a lot of the air from the cakes, so they came out quite thin.

I bought a pack of 8 inch disposable flan tins so that I could bake all 6 at once. They needed a bit of trimming to make them flat.

I made the cakes a week in advance, wrapped them in lots of clingfilm and foil once they were cool and froze them. Got them out to fill and crumbcoat with white chocolate buttercream. I coloured the buttercream and applied a thicker layer and added fondant flowers, butterflies, grass, clouds and rainbow using a tiny bit of water to stick them on.

The decorations were made a couple of weeks in advance and left to dry in a cool place.

If you cut the cake into squares it goes a lot further than normal wedge slices.

I made one for my daughter's birthday last year. I just used an ordinary victoria sponge recipe, tripled it and made six batches. I used gel food colouring from our local cakecraft shop.

I had to trim the cakes to make them flat (used the trimmings for cake pops). I used an enormous amount of buttercream icing, and it does need to be pretty stiff to hold it together. The finished cake is enormously rich so you only need a very small slice!

Just resurrecting this thread, as I am about to purchase all the ingredients or bribe someone to do it for me, and have a few more questions:

1. Will one cake really feed thirty kids plus assorted adults? Or should I do a big square one? Or a big round one?

1. How do I make white chocolate buttercream? How much will I need?

1. Can I use ready-made fondant icing over the top of the buttercream or will that taste shitola?

1. How much food colouring will I need? Are these the right ones? How much should I use?

Gah. I hate this. I am not a natural baker

1. Can I buy ready-made white chocolate buttercream anywhere?

Ds's lego one was was my first attempt. It was a 9" square tin and would easily do 30.

No idea what happened then was meant to be this picture

double surprise rainbow cake

I used white choc ganache (with purple colouring ) for the icing - warm up cream and pour over white choc, stir till it melts and then just pour it over the whole cake. I used warm nutella for to stick the layers together.

Just decorated with those sugar flowers you can buy in the baking section of the supermarket.

Just used a basic Victoria sponge mix and the gel colour from eBay.
Only had 2 tins so it took a while..

I used big square tons and 200g of cake mix per layer. Had to make about 3 yellow layers as they all looked like wee when they came out (put in loads of colouring).

'twas lovely and still the talk of the playground.

Wasn't difficult but it did take all day..