Rainbow cake and more!

Ok, I'm finally making time to sit down and write out how I made that crazy rainbow cake that I made for my husband's birthday. I'll also add the recipe for the pulled pork I made as well. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of that. Really, it wasn't all that pretty anyways. Tasted good, but was nothing for looks when compared to the cake. And for kicks, I'll also add the recipe for the chai snickerdoodles I made to use up some of the millions of egg yolks I had left over.


So! Without further ado, how I made the rainbow cake!


First of all, I must give credit to Whisk Kid since it was her blog post that inspired me to make this cake. 


White cake:


• 1 c. butter (room temperature)
• 2⅓ c. sugar
• 5 egg whites (room temperature)
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 3 c. flour
• 4 tsp. baking powder
• ½ tsp. salt
• 1½ c. milk (room temperature)
• food colouring


Preheat the oven to 350°F.


Grease however many 9" pans that you have and set them aside. Remember, this cake has 6 layers of cake, so the more you can bake at one time, the better off you'll be. I only had 2, so it took 3 trips to the oven.


Sift all your dry ingredients together and set them aside. Cream together sugar and butter. Add the egg white and vanilla. Now, alternate adding the dry ingredients and milk, mixing well after each addition. 


Now this part is a bit tricky. You'll have to separate the batter evenly, 6 times. The lady that I got the recipe from sperated them by weight. Weighing the whole bowl and then dividing that number, making each little bowl weigh that much. However, I don't have a kitchen scale. I have a large spoon that is measure to ½ a cup. I used that to split the batter, eyeballing the last little bit that didn't fill the spoon. 


Put your desired colours in each bowl. Again, that lady who did the original recipe used coloured gel, but I got the colours just as vibrant just using regular liquid food colouring. For a traditional rainbow, the colours would be purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red. But there are no rules and you can make whatever colours you want. 


Once the batters are all coloured the colour you want them to be, pour each individual colour into one of the pre-greased baking tins and bake for 15 minutes each. 


Once they're done, set them aside and let them cool. I made each part of the cake one day and then assembled it the next day. If you can't wait a whole day, just make sure they are cooled off completely before you put on the filling and frosting, or you will have a disaster on your hands. 


Now for the frosting.


Swiss buttercream:


• 10 egg whites
• 2 c. sugar
• 2 c. butter (room temperature)
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract


 I could absolutely not do it justice how Whisk Kid explained everything. I'll give you my amounts, but you should defiantly follow her directions here.


White chocolate mousse:


• 8 ounces (1 bag) white chocolate chips
• 1 ⅔ c. heavy cream (chilled)


Stir white chocolate and ⅔ cup cream in heavy medium saucepan over low heat until chocolate is melted. Transfer chocolate mixture to large bowl. Let stand until mixture is cool and just beginning to thicken, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes. Beat remaining 1 cup cream in medium bowl until stiff peaks form. Fold into cool chocolate mixture in 2 additions. Cover. Chill mousse at least 2 hours. 


Now to layer the cake. 


The order of which the colours *should* go are: purple, blue, green, yellow, orange and then red. But again, you don't have to do it that way if you don't want to. But if you want to stay true the the colour order of an actual rainbow, that's the way you should do it.

Put down a layer of cake. Spread a dollop of white chocolate mouse in the middle. Take a small spoon (or you could use a piping bag) and put some of the butter cream frosting around the mousse. This will help when icing the cake that you won't end up with mousse on the outside of the cake. Repeat this process for each layer. 

To frost the outside of the cake... well... I feel I didn't do a good enough job with my cake, but I'll tell you my technique anyways. I used a rubber spatula to ice around the edge of the cake, starting with a spatula full of icing and then pulling it up and turning the cake while doing this. The top of the cake I just started off with the back of a large knife, turning the cake and slowly smoothing out the icing on top. I then used that knife to smooth out the sides. 

Then viola! You're done! Make sure you refrigerate it if you're not going to eat it right away. It will get get hard in the fridge, so just take it out 15-20 minutes before you will serve it and the butter cream will soften again.

At this very moment, I seem to be having computer issues. I will post the cookie recipe and BBQ pulled pork recipe a little later. 


Caio for now!

Chai Cream Cake

First of all, I have to say it really helps if you hit "publish post". It really makes for you know, posting the entry that much more... postable.

So first of all, I was in Kingsway last night, wandering around waiting for my Mom to be finished at the dentist and I found a new kiosk there. They were right by the food court and it was all about cupcakes. There was a huuuge line up there and I was thinking "Why didn't I think of that?" I love to make cupcakes and stuff and the stuff they were selling wasn't even close to being as fancy as I make them and were crazy expensive. But people were lining up pretty far to get them. The mall wasn't even that busy and this place had a long line. Makes me think...

So anyways, I've promised people I'd post this recipe for a while now, so here it is!

Chai Cream Cake

Cake:

• 1 c. sugar
• 1½ c. flour
• ¼ c. cocoa powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 c. water
• 1 tbsp. vinegar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. ginger
• 2 tsp. cardamom
• ½ tsp. all spice
• ½ tsp. white pepper


Mix all these ingredients as you would any cake. Very simple. Pour the batter evenly between two 8" round cake pans and bake for 20 minutes in the oven at 350°F. Make sure to test with a tooth pick a bit earlier if you're using a convection oven as they tend to bake stuff like this a bit faster. 


Filling:


• 1 pkg. instant vanilla pudding. 
• 1 c. milk
• ¼ chai liquor (I used Voyant)


Again, whisk everything together as you normally would and set aside in the fridge to set. 


Frosting:


• 4 tbsp. flour
• 1 c. milk
• 1 c. butter
• 1 c. powdered sugar

• 1 tsp. vanilla

• 2 tsp. cinnamon

• 1 tsp. ginger

• 2 tsp. cardamom

• ½ tsp. all spice

• ½ tsp. white pepper

Put the flour and milk in a sauce pan and cook it until you get a very pasty like substance. It looks pretty yucky. If you think it looks like gross thickly gunk, it's probably ready. Cool it off completely. Stick it in the freezer for 5 minutes, stir it a bit and then leave it for 5 minutes more. While you're letting that cool off, whip together the icing sugar, butter and spices. Make sure you sift at least the spices as allot of these tend to clump and the last thing you want is to bite into a chunk of ginger. Take the mix out of the freezer and just take the electric mixer you were using and use it to fluff the flour and milk mixture. Beat it as is for a few minutes, then add the sugar and butter mixture. As I like to say, beat the crap out of it. It should be thick, smooth and stand on its own. 


Once everything has set and the cake has cooled, it's time to put it all together. When I put the cake together, I only ended up using half the pudding (if you put too much, there's a good chance it will squish out). Don't worry, the other half is never a waste... just put it in your tummy while your making it or do as I did and give it to your husband and it'll be gone in 30 seconds. There's really not much I can say about putting it together. No matter how many guides I've read or how much advice I've gotten for building cakes, it all comes from practice. It's just cake, pudding, cake, frosting and then creative details. It's been a long time since I've used an actual piping bag. I did all my decorations with a ziplock bag with the corner cut. You just need some imagination and a steady hand and that's really all it takes. 


Well, I hope this recipe is liked. 


Next thing I will post will likely be Bill's birthday cake. The party is on Saturday, so I'm going to try and have all the pieces done tonight and then build the cake tomorrow. I'm making a rainbow cake. Ooooh! Exciting! It'll have six layers and I've never done that many layers before. Wish me luck!

"Chai" for for now!