Rainbow Layer Cake

This cake was extraordinarily fun to make and even better to look at! The sense of accomplishment at the end is well worth it, and even if you're not a fabulous chef, you'll be praised by the cake- attendees because this cake is just so darn impressive!

You will need:

2x 340g packets of vanilla or plain cake mix or you can make your own, as I did, using my favourite recipe for buttercake ****

Different colours to tint batter with.(You can mix these in conjunction with each other to make new colours. I find this colour chart particularly useful.) I used Red, Pink, Orange, Green, Blue and Purple though I would recommend using substituting the Pink for Yellow. 

Frosting! Use any kind you like. I prefer to use this recipe:

1/2c margarine

1/2c shortening

1/8t salt

1 1/2t vanilla extract

5c icing sugar (confectioners' sugar)

1/4c milk

Mix margarine & Shortening until light and fluffy. Add the rest of the ingredients and beat like mad. 

You could also use fondant and just drape it over and cut to measure, if you want a 'cleaner' finish.
You may also want to decorate your rainbow cake. I would suggest stencilling a rainbow over the top of the icing and colouring with tinted powdered sugar or coloured sugar crystals.

Method:

Preheat oven to 180c or 160c fan-forced. 

Mix the cake batter, (as directed on packet or in my recipe) and divide into as many bowls as you would like colours (if following this recipe, that would be 6 bowls.) It should equate roughly to about a cup and a half per bowl.

Tint the batter,making sure to get nice vivid colours. 

Grease the cake tins you're using; the round 20cm ones work best. Bake the cake batter for 25 minutes, rotating halfway through cooking, or until cooked through. 

Stand in pan for 5 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool. 

I only had one cake pan and did all six layers seperately but as you can imagine, it took me a really long time and I wouldn't recommend it. Try using 2, possibly 3 cake pans if you can. 

Important Tip: Place your cake layers onto the surface that you will be transporting them on, whether this is a cake board, a serving tray or a cake carrier. It makes it a lot easier in the long run as this is a heavy cake and difficult to move until fully cooled and iced.

Start with whichever colour you like. It does look pretty to have them in 'rainbow' order, so if you're not sure, I'd suggest Purple, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red. 

Make sure to level the top of the cake once they are cool; the layers need to be flat so that they can give some stability to the structure of the cake.

Use frosting (about half a cup, but it really depends on your tastes and the size of your cake) until you have an even, half inch layer of frosting across the cake layer. Put the next cake layer on top and repeat with frosting and cake layers until you run out :)

Coat with frosting and smooth over then decorate however you wish!