Bearing in mind iv never ever baked a cake before......so thought id give it a try, I'm not a cake lover but i do love cooking and in all honesty i thought it wasn't bad for a first attempt.
In the end i made a large two layer cake and a small single layer cake.
(Apologies for the very poor images)
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| Large two layer cake! |
Large two layer cake again!
Small cake!
Small cake again!
Utensil's
- 1 large mixing bowl
- jug or small mixing bowl
- wooden mixing spoon
- spatula
- sieve
- hand whisk or electric whisk/mixer
- 4 breakfast bowls (or more depending on how many different colours your going to use)
- 4 or more spoons
- food weighing scales
- 26cm - 10" springform pan
- 2 x 18cm - 7" pans
- baking paper
- red, green, yellow and blue food colouring
- a table spoon
- wooden skewer
Ingredient's
- 330g butter (room temperature)
- 330g caster sugar
- 330g self-raising flour
- 6 medium-large eggs
- vanilla essence to taste (optional) i didn't use this as i thought the cake was rich enough
- food colouring-red, green, yellow and blue
Buttercream
- 120g butter (room temperature)
- 280g icing sugar
- a few drops of vanilla essence (optional but tasty)
- food colouring (optional)
Directions
*TIP* to save time weigh out ingredients first!
- grease your baking pans with butter
- line baking pans with baking paper (you can also grease the baking paper if your worried about it sticking, this is optional)
- preheat oven to 200c
- in a large mixing bowl add the butter and sugar
- cream until light and fluffy (so that it easily falls off the spoon)
- in a jug or small mixing bowl add all 6 eggs and whisk together
- add the whisked eggs to the sugar and butter a little at a time,beating well after each addition
- sieve the flour into the mixture about a quarter at a time, folding after each addition
- divide the mixture equally between the four or more breakfast bowls- now for the fun part!!
- mix each bowl of cake mix a different colour with the food colouring (see below for how to mix food colouring)
- add 1 table spoon of each colour in the center of the cake pans, one after the other, ensuring each "blob" of mixture is placed on top of the next (do not spread mixture out it will do this on its own )
- place in the middle of preheated oven for 30 mins (small cake) after 20mins turn oven down to 150c, large cake may take longer (40-45mins),test with a skewer in the middle of cake, if its clean its done!
- NEVER open the oven door before the 1st 20mins or so of cooking as this will cause the cake to sink!
- allow cakes to stand before turning on to a cooling rack, then carefully peal off baking paper
- allow to fully cool for an hour or so
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| It should look something like this.....pretty eh?? |
Mixing the buttercream
- place softened butter in a bowl
- sieve small amounts of icing in with the butter and cream together, do this until its a nice consistency
- if you find its still to "sloppy" add more icing sugar until you reach the desired consistency!
- add a few drops of food colouring (optional) ideally a colouring paste would be better but i didn't have any and just used the liquid form, be careful with this as it can make your butter cream to runny
- spread a small amount on the center of the large cake, then place the smaller cake on top
- cover and place in the fridge for 15-20mins to allow the buttercream to set
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| Tadaah!! |
Covering the cake
- one tub of shop bought betty crocker chocolate buttercream or you can make your own but i tuck the easy option!!
- spread the butte cream over the cakes carefully (taking care not to mix the two buttercreams together, it will look messy!
- then decorate!!!
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| Smaller cake with buttercream.......yum! |
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| I used small sugar flowers but use what ever you like! |
When you cut a slice just look how pretty it is.........
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| My son thought it was amazing!.........haha |
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| As you can see it didn't last long! |
How to mix food colouring
When mixing food colouring you need to use equal amounts, i use the lid of the food colouring bottle as a guide.
-Red
-Yellow
-Green
-Blue
These colours can be used alone or mixed to make a preferred colour!
Here are a few colours that can be made-
- pale blue- 4 drops of blue to 1 drop of green
- purple- 1 drop of red to 1 drop of blue
- orange- 2 drops of red to 3 drops of yellow
- salmon/pink- 3 drops of red to 2 drops of yellow
- lime green- 3 drops of yellow to 1 drop of green
- brown- 5 drops of red, 6 drops of yellow to 3 drops of green
- black- equal amounts of all 4 colours
Thanks for taking the time to read through my blog, please feel free to comment or ask questions
best wishes nikki xx
HAPPY BAKING xx
