Rainbow Velvet Cake

This Rainbow Velvet Cake is vivid in colour with a rich vanilla flavour. Six thin layers sandwiched with my Cream Cheese Buttercream and cloaked in a chocolate fudge frosting made for a decadent birthday treat!

 

Since I was born, there has rarely been a time when my birthday didn't conflict with either Easter or other family members' birthday plans. As fate would have it, my whole immediate family have birthdays within a 4 week timeframe, with Easter falling on either my dads, my sister's or my weekends. Most of the time it's not a big deal, although as a kid birthday parties were always somewhat disappointing. Then again, some years I did get chocolate and gifts, so I guess I'm not too hard done by!

This year my birthday fell right smack on Easter Sunday, so knowing we would have my grandma and N there I figured it would be a great time to make a tester batch of Rainbow Velvet Cake in preparation for my sister's celebration. She got the idea for a multicoloured multiple layer cake from watching Trixie Mattel's Easy Bake Oven series on YouTube (seriously, you should watch her cooking videos for the sheer fact that they are hilarious) and since I hadn't made one stacked that high in - well, ever - I needed to see if it worked.

 

Luckily, this cake recipe is simple - it's one batter that gets divided and individually coloured. That said, be prepared for all the dishes! While the cake I made uses only three colours, you need 6 bowls for tinting so as to get the right amount of batter per cake pan. Obviously, if you want more colours just don't double up on the bowl tinting! As for what colouring to use, I strongly suggest a gel or paste, since to get enough tint in the batter liquid dye will thin it too much. I haven't tried with liquid, so can't say what you'd need to alter for proper product.

 

Another note on the batter portioning - it will look like you won't have enough batter per 8" pan. You will. The batter should be thinly spread because you are effectively baking half a layer at once. Separate pans eliminates the hassle of torting and dealing with all those crumbs. 

 

When it comes to filling and frosting, your choices are endless - though I have to say both my sister and I are biased! I folded sprinkles into my Cream Cheese Buttercream and schmeared it generously between the layers and cloaked the rest in a chocolate fudge frosting. Given that it's a vanilla cake, pretty much any flavour filling will work - my mom loves raspberry jam, my dad loves custard, and me? Well, I'd be loading up on the chocolate. If you aren't using frosting, make sure to pipe a border around the outside edge of the cake to keep it from leaking out!

At any rate, have fun making this cake - and while it certainly feeds a crowd, it doesn't dry out too fast so storing it for the 3 or 4 days it takes to disappear is no problem!

 

Rainbow Velvet Cake

Makes one 8" (6-layer) cake

4.7 oz (1 ½ cups) cake flour
6.6 oz (1 ½ cups) all purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
3 oz (6 tbsp) salted butter, softened
2.9 oz (6 tbsp) shortening
11.8 oz (1 ¾ cups) granulated sugar
4 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 cup whole milk
food coloring (ideally gel or paste)

1. Heat the oven to 350°F and prepare four 8” round cake pans with nonstick cooking spray and parchment paper.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder and salt.
3. In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle, cream the butter and shortening with sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
4. Add the eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
5. Beat in vanilla.
6. Alternately beat in the dry ingredients and milk at low speed until just combined.
7. Weigh out the cake batter into 6 bowls and deeply tint with food colouring, mixing well.
8. Scrape the batter from 4 of the bowls into the prepared pans and smooth the tops with a spatula.
9. Bake the layers for 15-17 minutes, until a cake tester inserted into the centers comes out clean. Cool cakes in pans 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack.
10. Wash, re-grease and re-line two of the cake pans and scrape the remaining batter into them. Bake and cool as directed above.
11. Cool cakes completely before filling (I suggest my Cream Cheese Buttercream) stacking and frosting.