Famous Faces’ Favourite Fancies – Rainbow cake

 

I didn’t realise it at the time, but there was a definite theme, particularly for the ladies I wrote to for my Famous Faces’ feature.  I can only describe it as they all are women I would be delighted to sit down, share a pot of tea and cake, and have a right good natter with.  Therefore, it’s no surprise that I wrote to world famous author Jilly Cooper.

I love Jilly Cooper – I hope she won’t mind me calling her a true English eccentric (I mean it as a compliment – they are always my favourite people!) and an animal lover.  She’s also written moreinternational bestsellers than I’ve had hot dinners (NB.  That is a lie.  I am not known for skipping hot dinners.  I am using hyperbole to indicate that she has written lots of books!) I’m sure you will have heard of them ...particularly if you were a teenager in the late 1980s and desperate to read something a little racy (how we struggled in those pre-internet years!).  Riders?  Rivals? The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous? Polo?  Admit it...you’ve read at least one!

Jilly sent me a lovely response in which she reminisced about something called Rainbow cake that she had enjoyed during the (second world) war years.  She remembered it being pink, yellow and golden brown and described it as fascinating and haunting her, not least because she couldn’t imagine its ingredients during rationing!  I had a hunt for this recipe but found nothing, so hope that Jilly will be pleased with a modern rainbow cake.  I’ve wanted to make one of these for a while but the necessity of food colouring put me off, until I found the Dr Oetker natural gel colours.

I used disposable foil tins to bake my cakes and it meant I could prepare them all together rather than bake two cakes, wash the tins, bake the next two etc.  They came out well.  I kept the layers of sponge thin to stop it becoming the world’s tallest cake, but it still came out large...but as long as it fits on a cake plate, I consider it acceptable!

You might all have realised this yourself and roll your eyes as I share my latest discovery, if so, pretend I’m not the last person on the planet to work this out: tall cakes are a nightmare to cut and the layers can slide.  This is a cake that’s kept in the fridge – because of the cream cheese frosting – so cut slices straight from the fridge as the cold cake is far more stable and rigid.  Put the cut slices on their serving plates and let come to room temperature.  I can’t believe I’ve been baking every weekend for over seven years and have only just thought about doing that!  Oh well, better inspiration strike late than never......

Even the crumbs of rainbow cake are pretty:

Ingredients

For the cake:
375g unsalted butter, at room temperature
330g caster sugar
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 eggs
120ml milk
450g self raising flour
Natural gel colours in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet – I used Dr Oetker gel colours

For the frosting:

270g unsalted butter, at room temperature
225g icing sugar
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
675g cream cheese – I used Philadelphia

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.

Line six 20cm round disposable foil tins with a disc of baking paper.  If you have six loose bottomed sandwich tins then use those.

Weigh your empty mixing bowl.  I know this sounds weird but you will be glad of it later!

Start by making the sponge: Beat together the butter, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. Don’t skimp on this stage as this is when you get lots of lovely air into your sponge.

Beat in the eggs gradually, add some of the flour if it looks like it might curdle.

Beat in the milk.

Stir in the flour until the mixture is smooth and well combined.

Weigh your mixing bowl full of batter.  Deduct the weight of the empty bowl to find the weight of your batter.  Divide by six to find how much batter to allocate to each tier – this will ensure even layers.  This was my calculation:

Empty bowl – 789g
Bowl full of batter – 2,429g
Therefore batter weighs – 1,640 (i.e. 2,429-789)
Batter divided by 6 – 273g.  Each colour needs 273g of batter.

Weigh the batter out into six small mixing bowls – I used my cereal bowls.

Add the colours to each bowl – you will find you need more of some colours than other.  For strong colours like red and blue, I needed the whole tube.

Spoon into the prepared tins and level the surface.

Bake for approximately 15 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the sponge comes out clean. Another good sign is if the sponge is just pulling away from the edge of the tin.  I could only fit four tins in my oven at a time, I did the remaining two afterwards – there didn’t seem to be any issues from the batter sitting around.

Leave to cool completely.

Now make the frosting: beat together the butter and icing sugar in a large mixing bowl (I used my kitchenaid).

Beat in the vanilla extract.

Beat in the cream cheese, adding it a spoonful at a time, until your frosting is smooth and well combined.

Use about half the frosting to sandwich together the layers of sponge.  Make sure you get them in the right order – from the bottom up: violent, blue, green, yellow, orange, red.

Use the remaining frosting to cover the top and sides. 

Refrigerate until you wish to serve, ideally removing from the fridge about 30 minutes beforehand.  Here’s my top tip for getting a crisp slice from such a tall cake: take the cake from the fridge about 30 mins before you wish to serve and cut it while it’s cold.  Place the slices on plates and leave to come to somewhere between cool and room temperature.  It’s so much more stable to cut when cold.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.