rainbow layer cake secrets

Seriously - you can also be the rainbow cake queen.  If I can ice that thing believe me you can too.  I can bake, a little, Green's cake mix is my fave (oops the secret is out), but icing has always been beyond me.  I was determined to do better for Miss J's 2nd birthday rainbow party and the look on her face made all the effort worth it!!  Scroll down to get the skinny.

You need lots of time but its not difficult - this cake took me all day to complete

The cake
This is the easy part.  All you need is:
- your best sponge cake recipe, or in my case three boxes of Greens Lemon Cake mix
- food colouring
- cake tins with cutter bar (see this one)

You are going to make three cakes.   Split each cake batter in two and add colour.
If you have enough cake tins you can make them all at once.  I only have two so I have to do three batches.

Tips:
- make sure the cake tin is well buttered, you want the layers to come out easily.
- let the layers cool completely before you try and remove them from the tin.
- once cool use a bread knife to trim the top of the cakes so they are reasonably flat.  Mine are always a little rounded in the middle.

The assembly and icing technique
I have always battled with putting the layers together, I needed skewers to stop the layers sliding off each other and my icing always let me down.
This time I followed this icing recipe and assembly technique by Rachael from Made from Scratch.  I used her butter cream icing and her technique and the results were seriously impressive.  One of the nicest icings I have ever made too. 

As Rachael says it is all about patience and allowing each layer to cool and set before you use it.
It seems like a lot of effort but adding a crumb coat layer by layer, and setting in the fridge in between, creates a really sturdy cake and a brilliant base for your icing.  No skewers required!

- I added a little lemon to my icing and left off the poppy seed step.
- for this 6 layer cake I needed two batches of icing, it was a huge cake!

OK rainbow cake queens, have fun and let me know how you go.  The collective oohing and aahing is going to make all your effort worth while.

Images by Eva of Build House Home