Birthday cake help!

[Woofsaidtheladybird]

Hello oh wise ladies

So I'm making my DD's birthday cake next week:

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3028705/rainbow-cake

This says it cuts into around 18 slices - I need it to be around 30!

I've been emailing my cake-wise Mum but she's currently away in Australia so email answers are sporadic!

This recipe says its 8" tins - Mum reckons I'd need 12" tins - but I don't know how to transfer the ingredients into a 12" recipe, instead of the listed 8" - if that makes sense?

Can anyone help me please?

(Wanted to do something different than all the other Frozen cakes most other 6 year olds are after at the moment!)

Thanks

Woof

I made one of these for DD. In terms of your recipe, you need to divide all ingredients by 2 then multiply by 3 to get the amount. The only issue you will have is with the eggs, you will need 4.5 but I would just use 5. It is unlikely to change the mixture drastically.

One tip I would give it to weigh the mixing bowl initially then re-weigh once the mixture is made. Minus the inital weight of the bowl you have the mixture amount. Then you can divide this into 7 to ensure you get 7 equal sponge sizes.

I hope your DD likes it. :)

Amazing!

Thank you Tengo!!

Thanks for the top tip too!

Another tip with rainbow cakes (you may already know) make sure you use really good paste food colouring. You'd need loads of liquid colouring and it can affect the texture and sometimes the taste of the sponge.

I disagree. Make the quantity it says.

When it comes to cutting, instead of doing a grownup slice, cut half the cake into a grid (in half, then lines parallel to the first cut, then perpendicular to that).

They only want/need a taste. A whole slice would get wasted.

Scaling up makes timing tricky too.

If you're worried about having enough, but don't want to mess with timings etc, bake this cake as the recipe states, then bake another cake to have in the "wings" cut up and ready to go into party bags. I'm sure you could get away with just having a couple of colours for the back up cake rather than the full 7.

I agree with PP about cutting in a grid instead of in slices. If you cut it 6x6 you've got 36 pieces and they'll be plenty big enough, and you can even discountthe corner pieces if they're too small.

Oh!

Hadn't thought of the grid slicing thing!

Ooh.

Bit flummoxed now...

Can anyone recommend a particular brand of colouring then - what's the paste one?

Thanks again

I use Wilton colour pastes.

I buy Sugarflair off eBay. My seller does 7th free, so your seven colours would be £15 ish delivered - or three for about £8 - and will last forever.

I should say, I baked a bright blue cake last week. 3-egg sponge quantities. Used less than a quarter of a teaspoon of dye in total - top tip is to use cocktail sticks to scoop the paste.

I think a slice looks much more impressive when opened from the serviette at home. I don't chase cake glory much

Wilton or Homebake colouring gels are great for making rainbow sponge cake. Do not use liquid food colouring or Dr Oetker because the colours don't work in sponge mixtures and you would have to add so much liquid it will affect the consistency of the mixture.

I would go along with LetThereBeCupcakes idea of making more than one cake and using both of them.

Yep, a pot of paste colour goes a long long way. I baked a rainbow cake for DD's 3rd birthday and found that with paste colours, the colour of the baked cake is pretty much the same as the raw mixture - it doesn't change much at all in the baking.

The rainbow cake went down a storm by the way - good choice