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Wednesday, June 24, 2020

RAINBOW CAKE: Two Recipes to celebrate PRIDE

No parades to celebrate PRIDE this year, but here are two recipes for Rainbow Cakes that you can make and share with friends in your social bubble! These are both delicious and easy recipes for Rainbow Cakes to celebrate PRIDE.

This first recipe and photo is from Land O Lakes for a from scratch cake. I love their recipes!

1. PRIDE RAINBOW CAKE

Ingredients

Cake
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt 1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup Land O Lakes® Butter, softened
4 large Eggs
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup milk
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple gel food color

Buttercream Frosting
2 cups Land O Lakes® Butter, softened
6 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup Heavy Whipping Cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple gel food color

Directions
Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour 2 (8-inch) round cake pans or spray with baking spray. Set aside.
Combine flour, baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon salt in bowl; set aside.
Beat sugar and 1 cup butter in another bowl at medium speed, scraping bowl occasionally, until creamy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add 1 tablespoon vanilla; mix well. Add flour mixture alternately with milk, beating at low speed after each addition, just until mixed.
Divide batter evenly among 6 bowls with about 3/4 cup each. Tint cake batters red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. Spread red and orange batter into prepared pans. Bake 8-10 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Cool 3 minutes; remove from pans to cooling rack. Cool completely. Meanwhile, wash pans; grease and flour pans. Repeat with remaining colors until all cake layers are baked.
Beat butter in medium bowl at medium speed until creamy. Gradually add powdered sugar and 1/4 teaspoon salt alternately with whipping cream and 1 tablespoon vanilla, beating at low speed until well incorporated. Beat at medium speed until smooth and creamy. Remove 2 cups frosting; set aside. Divide remaining frosting evenly among 6 bowls with about 1/3 cup each. Tint frostings red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. Set aside.
Place purple cake layer onto serving plate, bottom-side up. Frost top with 1/4 cup white frosting. Place blue cake layer over frosting; frost with 1/4 cup white frosting. Continuing adding green, yellow, orange, and red layers in that order, frosting with 1/4 cup white frosting between each layer. Frost outside of cake with remaining white frosting. This layer of frosting will be thin and cake will be visible through frosting. Once frosted, refrigerate cake 30 minutes. (This is called a crumb coat and will prevent crumbs from interfering when piping rosettes.)
Place each tinted frosting into an individual resealable plastic food bag; push frosting to one corner. Cut off 1/2 inch from tip of corner. Place 18-inch-long piece of plastic food wrap onto counter surface. Pipe each color onto plastic wrap to form wide 12-inch horizontal lines (using all of frosting) that are touching.
Gently roll frosting lines into one large log using plastic wrap. Snip tip off 1 end of plastic wrap. Place cut-side down into piping bag fitted with size 1M open-star tip. Pipe rainbow rosettes onto cake beginning with middle of top of cake and working out and down sides so the most vibrant colors are on top of cake.
Tip: Each baked cake layer will be about 3/8 inch thick. The cake is about 3 inches tall before before being decorated with the colorful rosettes.

No time to make a cake from scratch? Make this recipe for a Rainbow Cake from Betty Crocker.

2. PRIDE RAINBOW CAKE

Ingredients

Cake 
2 boxes Betty Crocker™ Super Moist™ vanilla cake mix
2 cups water
1 cup vegetable oil
6 eggs
2 packages (2.7 oz each) Betty Crocker™ classic gel food colors (Wilton has natural food coloring)

Buttercream Frosting
1 cup shortening
1 cup butter, softened
1 bag (2 lb) powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 to 4 tablespoons milk

Directions
Heat oven to 350°F. Spray 3 (8-inch) round cake pans with cooking spray.
In large bowl, beat cake mix, water, oil, and eggs with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds, then on medium speed 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Divide batter evenly among 6 small bowls, about 1 1/3 cups each.
Using food colors, tint batter in 1 bowl blue, 1 bowl red, 1 bowl green, 1 bowl yellow, 1 bowl orange (using red and yellow) and 1 bowl purple (using blue and red).
 Refrigerate 3 colors of batter until ready to bake. Pour remaining 3 colors of batter into cake pans.
Bake 18 to 20 minutes or until cake springs back when touched lightly in center and begins to pull away from side of pan. Cool 10 minutes. Remove from pans to cooling racks; cool completely.
Wash cake pans. Bake and cool remaining 3 cake layers as directed.
In large bowl, beat shortening and butter with electric mixer on medium speed until light yellow. On low speed, gradually beat in powdered sugar. Beat in vanilla. Add milk, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating until frosting is smooth. Beat on high speed until light and fluffy.
Trim rounded tops off cakes to level, if needed. On serving plate, place purple cake layer. Spread with frosting to within 1/4 inch of edge. Repeat with blue, green, yellow, orange, and red cake layers. Spread light coat of frosting on top and side of cake to seal in crumbs, then frost with remaining frosting.

Tips:
Cake batter is stable enough to wait in the fridge until first three layers are baked. Be sure to rinse pans in cool water and dry them well before scraping the rest of batters into pans. Bake as directed. 

If you only have two 8-inch cake pans, bake cakes in three batches instead. 

To make sure cake layers bake up level, be sure to evenly divide batter between the bowls when coloring. 

Using half shortening and half butter for buttercream frosting ensures it will stay firm enough at room temperature. Make ahead and chill it for a while to firm it up before assembling the layers. 

For guaranteed easy unmolding, line each pan with baking parchment. Set one of pans on paper and trace a circle around base with tip of sharp paring knife to create a round that fits inside pan; repeat to make enough for all layers. 

For a deeper red color, add a teaspoon or two of unsweetened baking cocoa to the red batter.

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