Easter Recipe 2013

Easter Rainbow Cake Recipe:

Easter rainbow cake

A rainbow cake has long been one of my favorites for a special occasion it look so impressive, yet it's relatively simple. You just need to set aside some time to bake three sets of sponges, and then decorate your show stopper. I've spent lots of time in our Test kitchen developing this fool proof recipe: the sponges are dense and squidgy, so they shouldn't rise unevenly any trimming. They're made in Paris so you only need two sandwich tins, and there's plenty of icing - no danger of running short before the end!

A Little Effort:

• UN-iced sponges only cuts into 18 slices
• Prep 2hrs 
• Cook 45 min-1 hr

I've only given these measurements in gram, as I want it to be really accurate, but if you are desperate to work in ounces you will find conversion chart at bbcgoodfood.com
You will need 3x these ingredient for six sponges (see below to make seventh layer)

Ingredient:

•  125g butter, softened, plus a little extra for greasing
•  225g plain flour
• 150g golden caster sugar
• 3 medium eggs (very important to use correct size)
• 3 Tsp buttermilk
• 1/2 Tsp baking powder 
• pinch of salt 
• 1 Tsp vanilla extract 
• edible food coloring red, orange, yellow green, blue and purple, plus optional pink (see below)

For The Icing:

•  1 Tsp vanilla extract 
• 3x250g tubs light cream cheese  or mascarpone 
• 350g icing sugar

MAKE AN EXTRA LAYER:

 My recipe makes six sponge layers, but you can make one extra layer by having the cake quantities and baking a single sponge dyed pink - use this as your seventh layer. It’s not strictly necessary; the cake will still look fabulous with six but why not!

1. Heat oven to 160c/140c fan/gas 3. Grease 2x20cm round sandwich tins and line the base with baking parchment. Tip all the sponge ingredients, apart from the food coloring into a mixing bowl, and then beat with an electric whisk until smooth. 
2. Working quickly, weigh the mixture into another bowl to work out the total weight, then weight exactly half the mixture back into mixing bowl. Pick 2 of your colors and stir a little into each mix. Keep going until you are happy with colour the colour of the batter now will be very similar to the finished cake, so be brave! Scrape the different betters into the tins, but-try not to waste a drop of the better--a rubber spatula will help you. Bake on the same oven shelf for 15 mins until skewer poked into the middle comes out clean.
3. Gently turn cakes out onto wire rack to cool.Wash the tins and bowls thoroughly, and start again form  step 1 this time using another colors.unless you're making the optional pink layer,repeat one more time to get 6 sponges, all of different colors. Leave them all to cool.
4. To make the icing, very brifly beat the vanilla and cream cheese or mascarpone with an electric whisk until smooth. Sift in the icing sugar and gently fold in with a spatula. Be careful the more you work it, the runnier it will get, increasing the chance of splitting.
5. Smear a little icing on your cake stand or plate just a splodge to stick the first sponge. Start with the red , then spread with some icing right to very edge. Repeat, sandwiching on top the orange , yellow, green, blue and finally purple sponges. Spread the remaining icing thickly all over the sides and top of the cake.

TOP TIP FOR PROFESSIONAL FINISH:

• When you make each batch, keep a tiny blob of batter back  then, as you dye each future batter, you can make sure the color strengths match.
• A palette knife , which has a long, round and flexible blade, makes icing big cakes much easier, as the blade is long enough to scrape the whole side at once. You can buy them in cookshops.
• A turntable really helps if you're trying to ice a big cake. If you don't have one, use cake stand instead.