Rainbow Yoghurt Cake (How-to make a rainbow cake)

A friend of mine invited me to do a step-by-step guide on how to make a rainbow cake for her parenting blog. As I was preparing to to bake the Everyday Yogurt Cake recipe for the Bake Along, I thought it was a perfect recipe to turn into a rainbow cake.

I usually use a sponge or butter cake if I want to make a rainbow cake but this fluffy and moist cake works just as well. It is a rather plain tasting cake, so I added in some orange oil and orange zest to give it some kick. The colours really brighten up the cake and my kids were thrilled to be eating this rainbow cake. I don’t make rainbow cakes often though as I am not keen to give them food with colouring but I guess once in a long while is fine.

Everyday Yogurt Cake (9 inch)

From the book Cake Keeper Cakes by Lauren Chattman

Ingredients

• 2  cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1¼ cups sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt or low-fat yogurt
• ⅓ cup vegetable oil
• 2  large eggs
• 2  tsp. pure vanilla extract (substituted with orange oil and added the zest of 1 orange)
• Confectioners’ sugar

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F). Grease the bottom and sides of a 9-inch cake pan and dust it with flour, knocking out any extra.
2. Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Whisk together the yogurt, oil, eggs, and vanilla in a medium mixing bowl. Pour the yogurt mixture into the flour mixture and stir until just moistened.
3. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake until the top of the cake is light golden and a toothpick inserted into the center is clean, about 40 minutes.
4. Let the cake cool in the pan for about 5 minutes, invert it onto a wire rack, and then turn it right side up on a rack to cool completely. Dust with confectioners’ sugar, then slice and serve.
5. Store uneaten cake in a cake keeper or wrap in plastic and store at room temperature for up to 2 days.

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Here’s my step-by-step guide on making a rainbow cake:

1. I’ll be making a rainbow cake with six colours – red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. To colour the batter, you can use any type of gel colouring (liquid colouring may make the batter watery). I am using the Wilton brand which can be found at any baking specialty shops.

2. To mix your colouring into the cake batter, dip a tooth pick into the tub of colouring and then put it into the cake batter. Use a clean tooth pick every time you dip into the tub. Gel colouring is concentrated so all you need is a small drop.

3. After you have prepared the cake batter, divide it equally into 6 bowls. Transfer one scoop of cake batter from Bowl 6 to Bowl 2, and a scoop from Bowl 5 to Bowl 1. We do this so that the first and second layers will have the more cake batter than the third and fourth layers. And the third and fourth layers will have more cake batter than the fifth and sixth layer. This helps the cake to achieve an arch design. Colour each bowl of cake batter according to the picture below.

4. After colouring the batter with the coloured gel, mix well! Here is my daughter doing the mixing.

5. Place the first layer (red) in a lined cake tin and spread it out with a spatula to the edges of the tin. Pour in the second layer (orange) and spread it out leaving about 2cm from the edge of the pan. Pour in the third layer (yellow) and spread it out so that it is about 2cm from the edge of the orange layer. Continue this process till all the colours have been poured in.

6. When pouring in the cake batter, pour it gently into the middle of the cake tin. Use a spatula to gently spread the cake batter out.

7. The colours are layered in concentric circles. Now the cake is ready to be baked.