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.

Rainbow Cake

Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high,
There’s a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby…

May and June are busy months for me because my two girls’ birthdays are one after another. For the younger one, who is in a childcare centre, I would normally make a cake for her to celebrate with her friends there. She requested a princess castle cake with rainbow colours! This really put all my baking, frosting and fondant skills to the test. For an amateur baking like me, it took me nearly three days to put this cake together. Everything that could possibly go wrong did: the fondant flowers and windows were sweating due to the weather and started to slide off , the castle towers fell off and I could not get the cake frosted as smoothly as I like it to be – which really made me sweat too. Despite all the mishaps, I am just so glad that the whole celebration went well and that she and her friends enjoyed the cake.

The top tier (6 inch) was made using a sponge cake recipe – divide the cake batter into six portions, colour each portion then layer each colour individually before baking. Unfortunately, I can’t post the sponge cake recipe I used as its copyrighted from a baking class, but you can use any sponge cake recipe (like the one below from Baking Mum’s website) that includes sponge gel as that makes the cake more stable. The recipe below makes a 7 inch cake, so if you intend to fill a 6 inch pan, don’t put in all or you will get a very tall cake.

Sponge cake recipe (using sponge gel) – 7 inch cake

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 100 gm cake flour
• 100 gm castor sugar
• 12 gm sponge cake stabiliser
• 25 gm milk
• 90 gm melted butter

Method

• Put all the ingredients except the melted butter into a mixing bowl.
• Beat everything on high for at least 7 mins until ribbon stage. This means that when the batter is dropped back into your bowl, it stays at the top for a while.
• Add in melted butter at this stage and mix in thoroughly.
• Divide the batter into 6 or 7 bowls and colour each with food colouring.
• Layer each colour one by one into the baking tin.
• To achieve the rainbow arch effect, check out this video and see how the layers are poured in one by one.
• Bake at 190 degrees celsius for about 35 to 40 mins or till a stick inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Sponge cake recipes without sponge gel is not ideal for this as we need to do extra stiring in of the colouring which may deflate the cake batter.

The bottom tier (8 inch) was made using a butter cake recipe (see below) – Divide the cake batter into six different portions, colour each portion and then bake each portion in individual tins  (or you can use the same tin by baking many times over!).

Rainbow cake (adapted from recipe in Munch Ministry) 

Ingredients (8 inch)

• 330 g flour
• 300 g sugar (I reduced by 10 percent)
• 255g butter
• 2.75 teaspoon baking powder
• 1.5 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 270ml milk
• 3 eggs
• Food Coloring of your choice
• Frosting: Non-dairy whipping cream 500ml for 2 cakes

Method

• Cream sugar and butter till pale and fluffy
• Add one egg at a time
• Add milk and vanilla essence and mix well
• Sift flour and baking powder together
• Add sifted flour and mix well
• Separate batter into 6 bowls (or 7,depending how many layers you want)
• Add a few drops of different coloring to each bowl
• Pour cake batter into different baking tins
• Bake at 180 degree for 10-15 mins each till a toothpick inserted in comes out clean
• Whip the non-diary whipping cream till stiff
• Fill, layer and frost the cake when all the cake are cooled

Note: If you are baking using different tins, you can cool the cake in the individual tins before removing for frosting. If you are cooling the cake on a cooling rack, place a sheet of baking paper on the rack first before you place your cake on it. This cake tends to stick to the rack and will peel slightly if you place it on directly.