RAINBOW UNICORN PINATA CAKE

Create a Fantasy, FUN cake for a child's birthday party or for that adult who is in touch with their inner child!!

Cut into the cake for an EXTRA surprise as you lift out the first slice and the treats tumble out.

Your favourite vanilla cake batter

Your favourite vanilla butter cream icing

Food colour gels/pastes in red,blue and yellow, three primary colours which, when mixed, will complete the rainbow magic!

Four 20cm or 8 inch cake pans, oiled and lined with parchment.

Six small bowls to colour the batter and 7 for the icing

Ikg/2lbs Fondant

gold lustre powder

Edible Fairy dust

Store bought edible flowers for decoration

Method: DIVIDE the batter into the six smaller bowls. Add any desired flavoring to the batter now, for example orange essence.

Add a few drops (start with 2 drops and keep checking. You can always add, but you can't remove) of red coloring to one, mix well. Add blue coloring to another bowl, and yellow coloring to a third bowl. Add equal quantities of red and yellow coloring to the fourth bowl to make orange batter, equal quantities of yellow and blue to make green batter equal quantities of red and blue colouring to make violet batter.

There is no indigo layer, too similar to violet to justify the extra work.

Pour/scrape the first four batters into the prepared pans.

Bake two pans of batter in a pre-heated oven 180 degrees Celsius or 350 Fahrenheit for 18 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and add the next two batters to the oven. Cool the first two layers for ten minutes in the pan before turning out onto a wire rack. Clean the pans and prepare them for the final two colored batters. Once all six layers have been baked, allow to cool completely. Naturally, if you have a large oven you could bake three pans at a time.

Using a 5cms/2 inch drinking glass, or cookie cutter remove a circle of cake from the middle of each layer EXCEPT the red. Keep the little circles one side to make a tiny rainbow cake if you wish. ;)

Divide your buttercream icing into six bowls.Color each bowl of icing in the same manner as the batter, red, blue, yellow and red/yellow, blue/yellow and red/blue. Start with the violet cake ring. Place it on a plate or cakeboard, ice it with violet, then place the blue ring and ice that blue. Place the green ring and ice that green, then the yellow and orange rings with their respective colored icing.

Ice the orange ring but BEFORE placing the red disc pour the rainbow sweets into the 'tube' formed by the rings. Place the red disc and ice with red. Spread leftover buttercream around the cake sides in any color of your choice. You will notice mine is purple.

You'll need one kilogram/2lbs of fondant 'ready-to-roll icing. Using the gel paste food colors, never liquid as they will make the fondant unworkable, color 120g/4oz fondant red, 150g/5oz blue, 100g/3,5oz yellow. Make orange by combining 25g/1oz red with 25g/1oz yellow to make a beautiful orange. Make green by combining 25g/1oz yellow with 25g/1oz blue and violet by mixing 45g/1,5oz red and 45g/1,5oz blue. Indigo will be made with 30g blue and 30g violet. You will have noticed the cake itself has no indigo layer as I felt it was much of a muchness and not concommitant effort to make however, we will have the requisite seven rainbow colours in the mane and forelock of the Unicorn.

For the 'forelock' (fringe to non equine people), pull off about 10g of each color and roll into pencil thickness ropes about 10cms/4inches long. Set aside.

For the mane we need about 40g of each color rolled into fatter and longer ropes.Set aside.

For the ears, take two pale pink or white pieces of fondant, roll into cones and flatten on the clean table surface into flattened teardrop shapes about 5cms/2inches long. Make two small balls of pink fondant, flatten and place into ear base. Carefully insert a toothpick vertically into each ear so that they, too, will stand vertical and in position on the cake.

For the eyes take small balls of blue, indigo or violet left over paste and flatten into two ovals about 2,5cms/1inch long, the pupils are two small circles of black. If you do not have black colouring you could cut two black paper circles and stick them on or colour with black permanent marker.The position of the pupils gives "personality" to the Unicorns expression, see examples above. And of course a very mischievous Unicorn needs two tiny white fondant dots to 'light up' her eyes.

The horn is made with white ready to roll icing. Roll a cone shape and 'twist' it to form the spiral horn. Smear the gold powder over this, break a toothpick in half and insert each half into the base of the horn. This will keep it in place on the cake. My entire cake was made with pale pink icing hence the pink horn.

Right! You now have two eyes, two ears, a forelock and mane and a golden horn. We are on the home stretch!

Roll out about 500g/16oz of white fondant very thin, about 2mm/ eighth of an inch, on a surface dusted with white icing sugar (confectioners sugar) to prevent sticking, measure up the side of the cake, double that measurement and add the diameter to establish how large your circle of fondant needs to be. Lift it very carefully and drape over the iced cake like a tablecloth. Very gently rub with a flat palm over the top to smooth. Ease the fondant gently into place on the sides. Do not 'stretch' it. Ease it like you would drape fabric. If there is a pleat left you can either rub it to blend or cut it off and smooth gently. Any imperfections should be at the back of her head! I used gently blushed pink fondant for my cake which is perfect for a little girl. Just mix in a little red paste coloring and blend well for a homogeneous co lour.

Decide where you want her ears and stick them on by pushing the toothpicks into the top of the cake. The horn will sit between the ears and slightly back from them to leave space for the forelock/fringe. Her eyes will be placed on the top edge of the vertical side, see photo. Make sure the pupils face the same direction unless you want a squint or goofy unicorn!

Carefully 'gather' the forelocks together at one side, arrange them overlapping to look wild and free like a unicorn should be! Position the forelock at the base of the horn. The same with the mane, gather the ends together, place behind the horn, arrange the rolls haphazardly to look like a flying mane. For nostrils you can indent two 'comma' shapes and darken with minute rolled out pink sausages. If you have left over rainbow coloured fondants you can mix them together and depending on colour quantities you should get a beautiful brown colour to use around the base of the cake to really neaten off the bottom edge, resembling a neckband. To disguise any less than beautiful joins of the forelock to the base of the horn I used shop bought sugar paste flowers gently pressed into place. Naturally you could use real flowers too. I also added other shop bought tiny flowers and added a lot of rainbow dragees and left them to roll around, a little kinetic energy, if you will...

I hope you find great pleasure in making this fantasy cake as much as I have enjoyed making it and writing an instructable for you. Enjoy the look of surprise on the faces of your children and guests when you remove the first slice and the goodies tumble out from the centre. One could also use chocolate coins or real coins very carefully washed, in the centre well... like the pot of gold at the end of the RAINBOW!
I cannot 'credit' anyone for the cake as it is an assembly of various ideas from other people all rolled into one. This is my first Instructable as I felt compelled to join the fun when I saw the Rainbow theme! Rainbows...Unicorns... gold, glitter.... FANTASY! Remember to 'dust' the cake with edible fairy dust!