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Ingrediients for the cake
- 375g softened butter
- 675g plain flour
- 450g golden caster sugar
- 9 medium eggs (NOTE not large, not small)
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp of salt
- 3 tsp vanilla extract
- edible food colouring - red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple, plus optional pink (see below)
Ingredients for the fillilng and covering
- 3 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 x 500g tubs cream cheese or mascarpone
- 1050g icing sugar
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Method
- Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Grease 6 x 20cm round sandwich tins and line the bases with greased proof paper.
- Tip all the sponge ingredients, apart from the food colouring, into a mixing bowl, then beat with an electric whisk until smooth. I use a Kenwood Chef major so you can do this in one go, otherwise with a smaller food proecessor you might need to do it in 1/6th lots.
- If you weighed the ingredients correctly you should divide the mix into 300g units. If not you will have to, weigh the mixture into another bowl to work out the total weight, then weigh exactly 1/6th of the mixture back into the mixing bowl.
- Butter and line the cake tins with greased proof paper.
- One batch at a time take one of your colours and stir a little into the mix. Keep going until you are happy with the colour – the colour of the batter now will be very similar to the finished cake, so be brave! You need really bright deep colours. A faded coloured cake will just not do it.
- Scrape the different batters into the tins, trying to spread and smooth as much as possible – but try not to waste a drop of the batter – a rubber spatula will help you.
- Bake on the same oven shelf for 12 mins or until a skewer poked into the middle comes out clean.
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Gently turn the cakes out onto a wire rack to cool.
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To make the icing, very briefly beat the vanilla and cream cheese or mascarpone with an electric whisk until smooth.
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Sift in the icing sugar and gently fold in with a spatula. Be careful – the more you work it, the runnier it will get, increasing the chance of splitting.
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Smear a little icing on your cake stand or plate – just a splodge to stick the first sponge.
- Start with the purple, then spread with some icing right to the very edge. Repeat, sandwiching on top the blue, green, yellow borange and finally red sponges.
- Spread the remaining icing thickly all over the sides and top of the cake.
- Sprinkle 100s and 1000s on the top and sides.
- The cake will last about one week in the fridge or you can cut it and freeze it.
I first made this cake for a Syrian Boy called Marwan who adoped me as his Dad. He loved the cake. Alternative recipes say to use butter icing but for me that sets too hard in a fridge. I don't like mascapone but it works well with this and has a good shelf life. Please not this is a gay pride cake. If that offends I am sorry but Marwan knows I am gay and loves me nevertheless. Love the cake.
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