Out of This World Rainbow Cake Experience

Ingredients:

500g sunflower spread or butter, at room temperature

500g caster sugar

500g self-raising flour

10 eggs, at room temperature

Gel paste food colours in blue, green, yellow, orange and pink

For the buttercream icing:

400g icing sugar200g butter, softenedColoured sprinkles, to decorate

Equipment:

5 bowls

18cm sandwich tins

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4.

Grease and line the base of 2 or more 18cm diameter sandwich cake tins.

You’ll need to bake 5 cakes in total but the tins can be reused. I bought 5 inexpensive tins from the local supermarket to save a heap of time!

Tip: Weigh the empty mixing bowl, then re-weigh once all the batter is mixed. Divide the weight of the batter by 5 so you know how much to put into each bowl before colouring.

Place the sunflower spread, caster sugar, flour and eggs in a large mixing bowl and whisk together using an electric mixer until soft, smooth and creamy.

Divide the mixture equally between 5 bowls. You could do this by eye, or by counting spoonfuls. I weighed it out so it was pretty exact.

Add a small amount of food colour to each bowl, mix to colour evenly, adding more colouring if necessary to get vibrantly coloured mixtures. I used Dr Oetker gels and had to use a whole tube for each layer giving a pastel effect. Other products may give a darker, more vibrant result.

Spoon a coloured mixture into each tin and spread level with the back of a spoon. Bake for 30-35 mins until well risen and just firm to the touch. Cool in the tin for 5 mins then turn out onto a wire rack to cool. If reusing the tins, wash, grease and line with clean paper before adding the next mixture.

For the buttercream, beat the butter with an electric mixer until smooth.

Add the icing sugar, about one-third at a time, whisking well between each addition until smooth.

You need a soft spreading consistency so if the buttercream is too stiff add 1tbsp freshly boiled water from the kettle and whisk again until light and fluffy.

To assemble, place the pink cake on a plate or board and spread with a thin layer of buttercream.

Top with the orange cake then the yellow, green and blue, spreading a thin layer of buttercream between each one.

Using a round bladed knife spread the remaining buttercream over the top and sides of the cake, swirling it slightly.

Decorate with coloured sprinkles over the top.

I found this part the trickiest. I layered the cake with the buttercream and then refrigerated until the buttercream firmed up a bit.

I then spread the remaining buttercream around the top and sides. It is possible to do it all in one go but I found the layers were sliding about a little.

Decorating with sprinkles was more of a challenge then I expected, so, with the buttercream still fairly soft I threw sprinkles around the sides in the hope they would stick. This method worked but left my kitchen covered in rainbow sprinkles!

I decorated the top with small coloured sweets, more sprinkles and candles.

Then refrigerate the whole cake to help the buttercream set and the layers stay in place.