Colourful Layers, Vimto Buttercream And Fizzy Rainbow Belt Coating - Finished Off With Little Malteser Faces! All the right ingredients for a wacky Red Nose Day Rainbow Cake!
Prep Time1 hourhr30 minutesmins
Cook Time20 minutesmins
Total Time1 hourhr50 minutesmins
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: British
Keyword: Bake Sale, Baking Ideas, Charity, Red Nose Day
2tbspeach of redwhite and black/brown ready made icing (I use ready made writing icing tubes)
1comic relief red nose - for the centre of the cake!
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 170C/325F (fan).
Grease and line five 18cm diameter round baking tins with baking parchment (if you don't have five, you can do two or three cakes at a time instead, just make sure you allow the first batch of cakes to cool for 15-20 mins before removing from the tin).
Beat the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla extract.
350 g (1 1/2 cups) unsalted butter, 350 g (1 3/4 cups) golden caster sugar, 6 large eggs, 2 tsp vanilla extract
Sift in the flour and baking powder, then mix until combined.
350 g (3 cups minus 1 tbsp) plain (all-purpose) flour, 6 tsp baking powder
Divide the mixture between five bowls (I find it's best to use scales for accuracy).
Mix a half a tsp of each of the gel colourings into each bowl. Use more or less depending on how vibrant you want the cake colours to be.
5 different shades of gel food colouring
Spoon each of the bowls of cake batter into separate cake tins and bake in the oven for 20 minutes.
Take out of the oven and leave to cool for 15 mins, then remove from the tins and place on a cake rack until completely cool.
Now make the buttercream. Beat the butter, confectioners's sugar and vanilla extract together until smooth and creamy. Beat in the Vimto cordial, then add the milk, one tablespoon at a time, whilst mixing until you get a soft buttercream that you can spread. Mix in 1/4 tsp of red food colouring (a little more if you want it really red).
475 g (2 1/4 cups minus 2 tbsp) unsalted butter, 900 g (7 3/4 cups + 1 tbsp) confectioners' sugar, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1 tbsp Vimto concentrated cordial, 2-3 tbsp milk, red gel food colouring
Once cool, trim the tops off the cakes using a sharp knife so the top is completely flat.
Place one of the cakes on a plate or cake stand. Top with 2 heaped tbsp of the buttercream and carefully spread to cover the top of the cake. Place another one of the cakes on top and repeat until all of the layers are piled up, with buttercream in between them.
Spread half of the remaining buttercream on the top and sides of the cake. It's best to add lots of little blobs and join them up - this helps to stop lots of crumbs getting in the buttercream.
Place the cake in the fridge for 1 hour to chill, then remove from the fridge and spread on the remaining buttercream (you may need to beat the buttercream again with a splash of milk to loosen it up again).
Remove the rainbow belts from the packets and trim them so the length of each rainbow belt is equal to the height of the cake.
3 x 75g altogether packs fizzy rainbow belts
Arrange the rainbow belts all around the cake and place the cake back in the fridge for 30 minutes to chill.
Remove the cake from the fridge and place the red nose centrepiece on top, in the centre. Arrange the Maltersers on top of the cake. Push them down a bit so they stick to the buttercream.
2 x 37g altogether packs Maltesers, 1 comic relief red nose - for the centre of the cake!
Use the white writing icing to make 2 little dots on some or all of the Maltesers for the whites of the eyes. Add a smaller dot of black or brown icing for the pupils. Make the red noses using the red writing icing.
2 tbsp each of red
Serve straight away, or cover and store the cake at room temperature for up to a day before slicing and serving.