Rainbow Cloud Cake
4
½ cups flour
1
½ Tbs. baking powder
½
tsp. salt
½
tsp. baking soda
2
¼ cups butter, softened (important!)
1
½ cups + 2 Tbs. sugar
1
cup milk
2
¼ tsp. vanilla
6
eggs
Food
coloring: red, yellow, green, blue, and purple (Note: mixing red & blue
food coloring makes a muddy purple so better to use a specific purple food
coloring)
Preheat
to oven 350F
Prepare
9” round cake pans (grease then flour or use flour spray for baking).
Whisk together
flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda together in small bowl. Set aside.
In
mixer bowl, cream butter and sugar together on high speed until fluffy, 3-5 minutes.
Add
eggs one at a time, and then vanilla, beat until smooth.
Add
flour mixture in thirds, alternating with milk.
Beat for 2 minutes.
Divide
mixture into 6 small bowls (about 1 ¼ cups of batter per bowl). Color each bowl so that you have red, orange
(mix red and yellow food coloring to achieve), yellow, green, blue, and
purple.
Pour
one bowl of batter into one prepared pan for each layer. You can bake 3 at a time in a convection
oven. Bake 10 minutes and test. Cool in pans for about 10 minutes then remove
from pans and cool on rack. Fill, frost,
and decorate with buttercream frosting.
Buttercream
Frosting
1
½ cups (or 3 sticks) butter--must be softened (important!)
3
pounds confectioner’s (powdered) sugar
½
cup plus 1 Tbs. milk
3
tsp. vanilla
Blue
and yellow food coloring
(This
is a lot of frosting. You may want to do this in 2 batches.) Cream butter with electric mixer until light
and fluffy. Add sugar in thirds,
incorporating each addition before adding more.
Beat in milk and vanilla. Beat
until smooth.
Assemble
cake, frosting top of each layer as you go.
Measure out ½ cup of frosting and set aside (this will stay white for
clouds). Measure out another ¼ cup of
frosting in a separate small bowl and add a few drops of yellow food coloring
to achieve desired shade. Mix thoroughly
and set aside. (This is for the sun.) To remaining frosting, add a drop of blue
food coloring, mix thoroughly and repeat until you get the desired sky blue
shade. Frost the outside of the cake
with the blue frosting. With a frosting
knife, use white frosting to make clouds on the top and sides of the cake. Use yellow frosting to make the sun. Voila!
You’re done!
