Stripy Cake

Apologies for the long delay between posts. I have been dealing with various PhD things that have rather taken up my time recently. I did, however, have a chance to try out another cake that I have been wanting to try for a while. This involved another baking session with Miss Sarah (a most excellent baking companion, I might add), and was a fairly ambitious project in some respects, for we had decided to make a stripy cake.  For this cake, we chose the relatively straight-forward method of baking four separate cake layers of different colours. This was not so much difficult as time-consuming and a little complicated.

Miss Sarah and I decided that a simple vanilla sponge cake would be the best cake style to use for this project. We made the mix to the equivalent of two sponge cakes.

Ingredients:
Sponge - 

• 350g butter, at room temperature
• 350g caster sugar
• 6 eggs
• 350g self-raising flour
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt

 Buttercream (double required for the filling and the covering) - 

• 140g/5oz butter, softened
• 280g/10oz icing sugar
• 1-2 tbsp milk
• few drops vanilla extract

First we set up four 9-inch springform cake tins, greasing them with cake release spray, and then lining the bases with baking paper. The oven was then preheated to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4.


Next the butter and sugar were beaten together with a hand-held electric mixer.

Ah, that heavenly mix of butter and sugar.

Then each egg was added one at a time, and beaten in to the mixture.

Adding the eggs one at a time.

Once all the eggs were beaten in, the vanilla was mixed in, and then the flour and salt were sifted together, and gently folded into the cake mixture.

Miss Sarah folding in the flour oh-so-carefully.

This mixture was then divided between four bowls, and each had a different food colouring (green, red, yellow, and blue) added to it.  Each bowlful was then poured into a cake tin, and these were then baked in the oven for twenty minutes each until they were fully baked.

Soooooo pretty!

Each layer was set aside to be cooled (the blue layer a source of some amusement, as we were both convinced that the swirls from the food colouring presented the image of a dinosaur skull).

First layers ready.

T-Rex skull maybe?

Once cooled, the layers were ready to be put together. For this, a simple vanilla buttercream was made by mixing together the butter and icing sugar, and then mixing in the milk and vanilla.

Mmmmm, buttercream.

Each layer of the cake was topped with some of the buttercream, before the next layer was carefully placed on top.

On goes the first round of buttercream.

Carefully placed blue layer.

Red and green layers.

Messy but fun.

The completed cake tower was quite a sight, although the outside of each layer masked the true colours inside rather well, making the cake appear to have layers of various shades of brown.

Not looking too pretty at the moment, but a whole load of buttercream will deal with that.

Then it was time to cover the cake, which required another batch of the buttercream. Once the cake was completely covered, dots of food colouring were added to the top.

Colourful dots.

The food colouring was then blended together to make a vague approximation of decoration.

'Interesting' decoration...

The first cut was the most nerve-wracking, for until we cut into it we could not be entirely sure that the various layers had worked well.

It worked! Phew!

I am pleased to report that we had a success on our hands. The different layers and colours were very clearly defined, and worked very well together.

Beautiful!

Nice layers.

Stripy cake and a cup of tea - lovely!

When I tried out the recipe again, I made some small alterations. Two of the layers (the blue and green) were the vanilla sponge, but the other two (the red and yellow) were honey-flavoured sponges. I also decorated the top of the cake with small chocolate dots instead of food colouring. It did make for a very pretty cake.

Improving on the original design with chocolate dots.

Very cute, I think.

The only quibble I had with this version was that the layers were not uniform in size, but that is merely a cosmetic issue. The cake tasted beautiful, with the honey and vanilla flavours combining well. It was certainly popular with my work colleagues.

Proving popular at work.

The stripy cake was definitely a success, and a recipe that I shall be experimenting with a great deal in the future. The aim is to at some stage make a full rainbow cake, all seven layers of it.

Beckie.