Rainbow Cake

Pick all the colors you can think of, mix it with the cake batter and make the most colorful Rainbow Cake. And if you love frosting then by all means go bold on that too. I used quick butter cream frosting. Now because it’s a special cake to celebrate the festival of HOLI colorful sprinkles went on top. HOLI is after all the festival of colors!

Rainbow Cake to celebrate HOLI

Festival for me is indulging on festive food. And this rainbow cake is one the way I chose to introduce HOLI to Avyan. He had a blast baking the cake but most important adding those colors. This is a super easy rainbow cake to try baking with your kid. It does get a little messy but it’s fun too.

The recipe will bake a 6 inch Rainbow cake. It’s a simple one-bowl cake recipe.

Do remember to use food color gel for the Rainbow cake instead of the liquid food color. I used this!

How to bake this Rainbow Cake?

The batter of the rainbow cake is a simple one bowl:

• Whisk egg with sugar and then add vegetable oil. Sift the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda). Mix to make the cake batter.

FLAVOR: You can use orange or lemon zest with little bit of juice. Or choose good old vanilla. You can also use spices of you choice like ground cardamom.

• Once the batter is ready, preheat the oven to 350F and divide the batter into six to seven small bowls. Add the food colors to each of the bowl and mix it properly.
• In the greased pan, add the colored cake batter one after the other. Don’t bother to layer it neatly. Tap the pan once you added all the batter.
• Bake for 45 to 50 mins.

The Butter Cream Frosting:

The recipe will make 2 and ½ cup frosting and you will probably not need all of it unless you want a thick layer of frosting on the cake.

It’s just room temperature butter that whisked with powdered sugar until it combined. For flavor I added lemon zest and a little bit of lemon juice.

As for the text on the cake, it’s just store-bought fondant.

I probably said this time and again in the past that HOLI is one festival I disliked as a kid. The idea of throwing colors at each other is fun but then it gets to a point where people will throw colored water, making it too messy. Did I mention before I don’t like mess! The worst part was that some of those colors won’t go for days. So as a kid, I would hide the entire day in my Mom’s kitchen.

What I did like though were all the tasty food Ma would make to indulge on later in the day.

Here in US, HOLI is not exactly played the same way and for some reason or another, I never managed to expose Avyan to the concept. I am definitely going to try and see and if we can buy some dry colors (Rangoli as we call it) and play in the backyard if not in the social gathering that is organized every year in Bay Area.

This cake is my first HOLI treat this year. He loved baking it with me and cutting the fondant for the text. As expected, he mostly ate the frosting. The cake was quite nice and adding lemon syrup between the cake layers kept the cake spongy.

Here are other cake recipes to try!

Rainbow Cake

Yield: 6 inch cake

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 55 minutes

Pick all the colors you can think of, mix it with the cake batter and make the most colorful Rainbow Cake. And if you love frosting then by all means go bold on that too. I used quick butter cream frosting. Now because it’s a special cake to celebrate the festival of HOLI colorful sprinkles went on top. HOLI is after all the festival of colors!

Print

Ingredients

for the cake

• eggs - 3
• white granulated sugar - ¾ cup
• vegetable oil - ¾ cup
• all purpose flour - 1 cup
• baking powder - 1 teaspoon
• baking soda - ½ teaspoon
• cardamom powder - 1 teaspoon
• Pinch of salt
• Zest of 1 lemon

for the frosting

• soften butter (NOT melted) - 1 cup
• powdered sugar - 4 cups
• Zest of 1 lemon
• lemon juice - 1 tablespoon

for the text on the cake

• fondant

Instructions

1. In a bowl whisk the egg with sugar until it’s smooth. Pour the oil and whisk again to incorporate everything.
2. Sift the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and baking soda, salt and cardamom powder) to the egg mixture. Add the lemon zest and fold everything to make the batter.
3. Divide the batter into multiple small bowls. Add different gel food colors, just a little bit is enough. Whisk to incorporate the color uniformly.
4. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
5. Grease a six inch round cake pan. I used this pan which is quite deep. If the cake pan you are using is not deep enough, then divide the batter into two pans.
6. Pour the colored batter one on top of another. Don’t worry about perfect layers. This cake will create a mishmash of colors.
7. Tap the cake pan and bake it for 45 to 50 minutes.
8. Cool the cake completely before you layer and spread the
   frosting.
9. To prepare the frosting attach the whisk to your stand mixer. You can use a hand mixer or whisk with hand too. Whisk the butter until it’s soft. Then add the powdered sugar little by little to incorporate it completely to the butter.
10. Add lemon zest and lemon juice and whisk again.
11. Slice the cake in half and to keep the cake moist, brush some orange juice or orange syrup on the layered cake. Then spread some of the frosting in between the layers.
12. To cover the cake with frosting you can choose to add some color or add multiple colors. (Keep in mind you may not need all of that frosting you made. So you might want to start by adding color to some of the frosting only.
13. Cover the cake with the frosting and then add some rainbow sprinkle on top.
14. I used store bought fondant to cut out the text.