It’s not my birthday today but I’m showing you how to make this two-tiered birthday/celebration cake.
This cake is two tiers, the bottom one consisting of a rainbow cake and the other a vanilla cake (originally it was going to be a sprinkle cake but the sprinkles wasn’t that colourful and baked into the cake), filled and finished with a vanilla buttercream.
The rainbow cake is colourful on the inside but the outside, has a plain sprinkle buttercream and the top tier
This cake was made for my cousins 18th birthday. I would have experimented with flavours if this was for myself but unfortunately, my cousin is a picky eater and is a lover of all things plain. I’m not exaggerating when I say the most exciting thing she’ll eat is plain pasta with mayonnaise…
Taking into consideration my cousins preference in food, there was not going to be any jam or fillings in the cake, thanks Emelia!
Anyway, let’s get started, shall we?
8” Rainbow Cake:
Rainbow colour pastes (red, orange, yellow, green, blue & purple or your choice of colours).
750g Butter
750g Granulated sugar.
9 Eggs.
750g Plain flour.
22g Baking powder.
2g Salt.
135-150ml Milk (I used whole milk but feel free to use your milk of choice).
2 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract.
6” Vanilla Sprinkle Cake:
225gg Butter.
225g Granulated sugar.
4 Eggs.
225g Plain flour.
7g Baking powder.
Pinch of salt.
45-60ml Milk (Whole or your preference).
60-80g Rainbow sprinkles.
Simple Syrup:
250g Granulated sugar.
250ml Water.
1 tsp Vanilla extract.
Buttercream:
700g Butter (at room temperature).
1,600g Icing sugar.
Vanilla extract (as much or as little as you like).
Finishing:
White chocolate spread (for the white chocolate drip).
Methods:
Before you go ahead and start on the recipe, it’s best to do some prep. I’ll list it for you.
- Start by weighing up all your ingredients.
- Butter and flouring the 8-inch and 6-inch cake tins, line them piece of parchment/greaseproof as well.
- Preheat the oven to 180˚c/350˚f.
- Add the food colour to the milk, this helps you not to overmix the cake batter and loosen the consistency to be more spreadable.
Rainbow Cake:
Before you get started on making the cakes, you’ll want to add your milk into each bowl, add the food colouring pastes and give a good mix until the colour and milk are very well combined. Set aside until needed later.
To start on the cake, place the butter and granulated sugar into your mixing bowl and beat them together over medium-high speed until they have become lighter and fluffier in colour and consistency.
Once that has been achieved, add your eggs, one at a time, beating well in-between each addition. The mixture will become looser in consistency, this is normal.
Give the bowl a good scraping down, this is just to incorporate any bits that may not have been fully worked in from early on.
Now you can add all the dry ingredients, passing them through a sieve to remove any lumps that may be in the dry mix. Incorporate them in on a low speed to start, working your way up to a medium-high.
Once the dry ingredients are fully incorporated, you can then give it a final mix, just to incorporate any bits that haven’t been fully worked in and then transfer it into a large bowl and weigh it, then divide that amount by 6 and weigh that amount into each bowl of coloured milk. Give it all a good mix until the colour has been fully mixed in.
You can then transfer the cake batter into the prepared and lined 8-inch cake tins and bake in the oven for around 25 minutes (or until a tester comes out clean).
Now that the cakes are baked, allow to cool in the tin for a short while before transferring onto a cooling rack.
Once the cakes are fully cooled down, you can then level the top off with a cake leveller for the best accuracy and trip the sides to make the sponges as level as possible. Set aside until needed later.
Vanilla/Funfetti Cake:
Into your mixing bowl of choice, place the butter and sugar, beat together over a medium-high speed. Beat them together until lighter and fluffier in colour and consistency.
Now you can add your eggs, one at a time beating well in-between each addition. As you add the eggs, the consistency will chance, this is normal.
Give the bowl a good scraping down, this is just to incorporate any bits that hadn’t been fully incorporated.
Add the dry ingredients, passing them through a sieve to remove any lumps that may be in the dry mix. Mix on a low-medium speed to start, working your way up to a medium-high until the flour is fully incorporated.
If the consistency is a little stiff, add a tablespoon of milk at a time to get it to the right consistency, normally around 3-4 is about right.
You can then add your sprinkles, and fold them in until they are equally dispersed in the batter.
Take the weight of the cake batter and divide it by 3 and separate the cake batter between the 3 cake tins. Level them as best you possibly can, using a cranked/offset spatula.
Place into the oven and bake for 30 minutes or so (or until a tester comes out clean).
Once the cakes are out of oven, allow to cool in the tins for a bit before removing from the tin and allowing to cool fully on a cooling rack.
Take the cooled cakes and level the tops off with a cake leveller and trim the sides to make them all as equal as possible.
Simple Syrup:
To make the simple syrup, into a medium saucepan, place the sugar, water and vanilla extract and give a brief mix.
Place on the hob over a medium-high heat until it reaches a boil, then take it off the heat and allow it to cool down fully before you use it.
If you don’t intend on using it once its cooled down, store it in the fridge in a container with a lid.
Buttercream:
Place the butter into your mixing bowl and beat on its own for 7-10 minutes until its lighter and fluffier in colour and consistency.
Once it’s become lighter and fluffier, you can give the bowl a good scraping down and then you can add half of your icing sugar and give it a good mix for around 4-6 minutes. The icing sugar should be fully incorporated before you add the other half – repeat with the remaining half of icing sugar.
Now all the icing sugar has been incorporated, you can add the vanilla extract and beat it in until its fully incorporated.
Store in an air tight container in the fridge if you don’t intend on using that day.
Assembly:
To start on the assembly of the cake, you’ll want to make sure that you’ve got all the elements of the cake made before you start.
Simple syrup all your layers of cake now, it will save you faffing about in a little while when you’re assembling.
Get yourself a 10-inch cake board and place it onto your turntable. Take a small amount of the vanilla buttercream and spread it out in the centre of the cake board and place the purple layer of cake
Continue to sandwich the cakes together with a good layer of buttercream.
You can then give the cake a thin coat of buttercream, this is known as a crumb coat. It simply locks in the crumbs, so when you apply your second coat of buttercream, there are no pesky crumbs in the final coat.
Chill the cake in the fridge for around 45 – 60 minutes, or until the buttercream is firm to the touch.
At this point you’ll want to dowel the cake – I recommend checking out the amount of them you’ll need using an online chart. The chart I used was from college and got thrown away in the clear up of this cake.
Take some of the buttercream and add 50-60g of rainbow sprinkles to it and fold them in using a spatula.
Then apply the final layer of icing to your rainbow cake, be as liberal with the buttercream as you can scrape away any excess and use it to pipe the rosettes. Once you’ve applied the final coat and smoothed it out using a cake smoother, you can then place back in the fridge to firm up again for 45-60 minutes.
Repeat for the vanilla cake that’s going on top, but don’t add sprinkles to the buttercream, instead add a small amount of food colouring and dye the buttercream pink (or whatever colour you’d like). Make sure the 6-inch vanilla cake is on a 6-inch cake board, it’ll make it easier to move the cake around.
To secure the 2 cakes together, you’ll want to use a small amount of either buttercream or royal icing. Spread a small amount on top of the larger cake, right in the centre, then place the smaller cake on top and press it down a little just to secure it in place.
You can place this back in the fridge if you’d like or you can melt the white chocolate spread down and use it for the chocolate drip.
Pipe rosettes on top of the 6-inch cake and you can make any other changes from here, to personalise it to suit the person you’re making it for.
You can decorate this cake however you like, I just went with my typical look on the cake.
That’s all for this week guys, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, don’t forget to share this recipe with your family and friends and enjoy it. I’ll be back next week with another blog post and YouTube video, so join me then. In the meanwhile, don’t forget to check out my Instagram and Twitter. The YouTube video will be linked down below!
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