This cake has made me so proud! It has put a smile on my face every time I passed it by and people have commented so kindly on it that all the effort and backache that went into it were worth it. Not least of all it was declared by Maya, the birthday girl (7), her new favourite cake, because she loved the taste of it too. This cake is both incredibly pretty and delicious.
 |
| Rainbow cake slice |
Now, for details. I made the white cake
recipe called Parfect Party Cake by Dorie Greenspan in
Baking : From My Home to Yours. Because I do not like to waste, I used the leftover egg yolks to make a half recipe of yellow cake from
The Joy of Cooking for the yellow and orange layers.
 |
| Pastel rainbow cake, unadorned |
White and yellow cake concepts are American. White cake using only egg whites and yellow cake, well, you've guessed by now.
I added a hint of vanilla to everything, the icing is similar to Billy's
vanilla buttercream, which I have used successfully before on
cupcakes.
 |
| Pastel raibow cake, in all its glory |
I read online that people used gel or paste food colouring to get the best results. I bought a bottle of pink gel and used only liquid food colouring for the other layers. I held back a little of the liquid in the cake recipes and everything went fine. Note that this is a pastel cake, so that didn't need as much colouring as a vivid rainbow. I brought the McCormick colourings back from New York and they come with a guideline for achieving colour tones that I adapted to my recipes.
 |
| Rainbow cake, minimalistic |
Then I added the flowers and marzipan leaves because we attempted to have a fairy and princess theme for the party. I admit I preferred it without flowers, it even looked good in a minimalistic, Momofuku-style way without icing on the sides but then I am not a seven year-old girl any more.
Comments
I used the pink gel and the other layers used just liquid colouring (red, green, blue, yellow), mixing drop by drop according to the packet instructions more or less adapting to my taste and to the amount of batter.
I hope it helps!
Kate, I also make this type of cake for my own sake ;)
My name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because trough them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately it’s impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Luxembourg? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Luxembourg in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
28902 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez