Rainbow Cake step-by-step tutorial
This easy Rainbow cake recipe is one of the beautiful cakes with colorful layers and a super easy, light cream cheese frosting! Not only the most colorful cakes of all but also tastes really amazing with vanilla and cream cheese notes. A super delicious and fun cake to make from scratch, you will love it!
- Prep time
- 1 hr
- Cook time
- 1 hr
- Yield
- 8 servings
- Difficulty
- HARD
Ingredients
Quantities are shown as originally provided.
- 250 g Unsalted butter (room temp)
- 225 g Granulated sugar
- 3 Eggs (room temp)
- 1 tablespoon Vanilla bean paste (pure paste, eg. Nielsen Massey)
- 250 g All purpose flour (sifted)
- Pinch of salt
- 2 teaspoon Baking powder (sifted)
- 50 g Whole milk (room temp)
- Rainbow colouring food gel in 6 different colours (Rainbow Dust or Wilton)
- 900 g Cream cheese (full fat eg. Philadelphia )
- 300 g Mascarpone (full fat)
- 150 g Powdered sugar (sifted)
- 1 tablespoon Vanilla bean paste (pure paste, eg. Nielsen Massey)
Instructions
- 1
Decide how many cake layers you want to bake at once depending on how many baking pans you own, I recommend 3 pans at least so you can bake this cake in 2 batches. The steps below assume 6 pans (all 6 colours) made at the same time. If you have 2 pans, make only 1/3 of the recipe using 2 colours then repeat the same process for another 2 colours then one last time with the last 2 colours. If you have 3 pans, make 1/2 of the recipe then repeat. The recipe quantity can be easily divided into either 3 or 2.
- 2
Heat the oven to 170 C / 338°F (no fan) and prepare your baking pans
- 3
Start with preparing 6 small bowls and divide milk into 6 with the help of your Digital scale
- 4
Mix gel food coloring into milk one by one, there will be 6 colors: red, yellow, orange, blue, purple, and green. Use a toothpick and start with a small amount until bright color achieved
- 5
Cream room temperature butter and sugar together in a stand mixer until pale and fluffy then beat the eggs in, one at a time
- 6
Sift flour, salt, and baking powder together, this is the “dry ingredients”
- 7
Fold dry ingredients with the butter-sugar mixture until combined
- 8
Divide now the mixture into 6 equal portions using a digital scale
- 9
Mix each portion with one of the colored milk so at the end you will have 6 equal portions of cake batter. If you are unhappy with the color of your batter at this point, mix in some more coloring
- 10
Pour the cake batter into 6 different baking pans
- 11
Bake them for 20 min or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Let them cool on a cooling rack before frosting
- 12
For the frosting beat mascarpone, cream cheese, vanilla bean paste and powder sugar until smooth and fluffy, this will only take few minutes. Use an hand mixer and do not over beat as it can become runny
- 13
Start building up the cake from the bottom (purple) to the top (red) and spread the frosting in between the layers equally. I suggest 100g per layer, use a digital scale to measure
- 14
If at any point the frosting gets soft or the cake gets unstable, place it into the fridge to chill then only after continue
- 15
Once all the layers are assembled, place the cake into the fridge for 1h to set then on a turntable apply your first crumb coat around the cake
- 16
Let the cake rest again for 1h in the fridge before applying your final coating
- 17
Divide the remaining frosting into 6 equal quantities and color them. Decorate the top and side of the cake according to your liking
- 18
Store cake in the fridge however let it come to room temp for 30-60min before serving for the softest, most moist texture