Monday 6 December 2010

Lemon Rainbow Cake


I've been planning this cake ever since I saw this fabulous rainbow cake on Whisk Kid. It was the perfect 20th birthday cake for my housemate Sarah. She's been hanging around in the wings of this blog as 'my housemate' for ages but I think it's high time she was introduced as herself. 

Sarah is my housemate who doesn't like chocolate cake (but loves anything else chocolate, including chocolate fondants and brownies). She is a big fan of Emma biscuits. Sarah could survive on cheesecake alone (it's her fork that's attacking this Raspberry and Caramel Cheesecake). She is the one who would have killed me if I didn't make profiteroles for this challenge (and may still do so if I don't make eclairs soon...).


Sarah also loves lots of bright colours and rainbows. Hence this cake. She was also the best bet for a fabulous reaction (see below)!

As I've said before, I'm not a massive fan of piles and piles of super sweet icing and really like my cakes of taste of more than sugar with a faint vanilla tinge. Whisk Kid already had some lemon in her icing but I wanted to take this further to really give the cake a good tang. So I added some rind to a different cake batter recipe and soaked the cakes in a lemon syrup. I also made a tangy cream cheese icing and used a lot less of it. 

I might have to rechristen this 'The E-number cake', as it's full of them from the food colourings. It's definitely a special occasion cake and not one I'd want to make all the time. Beating the colour into the batter took a lot of the air out of it, so the cake itself wasn't as light as I would of liked, but it still tasted and looked good. Room for improvement - but half the fun would be taken out if there wasn't!

P.S. I'm really sorry for the awfully lit photography - it was basically dark by the time we cut the cake and I didn't take proper ones before. I didn't want to not post about it so they'll have to do!


Lemon Rainbow Cake

Edit: I've removed the recipe as I wasn't especially pleased with the flavour, even though it looked dramatic.

4 comments:

  1. I've been wanting to make a rainbow cake for months now but haven't had the chance (little sisters birthday is coming up so that could be a chance). Yours looks fantastic and I love that you made it in a 6" rather than in 8"!

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  2. Too cute! Love Sarah's reaction shot.

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  3. Very beautiful and cute!
    Perfect for someone who doesn't like chocolate cake (she is the first person I heard that doesn't like chocolate cake!!!)

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  4. My little boy starts singing at 2am if I give him things with food colouring in so I'll be giving this a miss in my kitchen! It's a real show stopper though.

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