So a couple of weekends ago I walked 100km in just under 28 hours. The main reason for this is that my friend Lorna asked me to. I’ve explained before that she rallied a team together to collect money for Cancer Research after one of her friends at work was diagnosed with cancer. We have raised over £6,300 which is amazing and is testament to how kind hearted and supportive people can be of crazy physical challenges. It’s also testament to the fact that everyone needs Lorna as a friend. Or at least someone like her as she’s already a very busy lady and might break if she had to be friends with the world (she is already a friend of all animals which is fairly epic in itself). Who else would think of doing such a random thing and actually convince six more people to do it with her?
So this week I went a bit random. It’s not exactly a true
rainbow cake, as I’m missing three colour layers (I need a bigger cake box to
transport something taller), but this will give you a good enough guide. There is
something satisfying about constructing a truly fun cake with no real purpose
other to look pretty and get people hyper on the E numbers (someone in my
office had to have a walk to get rid of the excess energy after her slice!)
The sponge is really easy and robust as you don’t want to
have to faff with lots of ingredients and breakages when doing multiple layers.
Don’t worry though – it’s a nice sponge and tastes well. It also keeps so you
can make the sponges a couple of days in advance. Maybe I should start getting
sponsored for the tallest cake I can make?!
Ingredients
Cake
Each layer uses the following (you can mix in big batches
and divide into bowls to add the food colouring. Each layer will need 415g of
batter).
100g softened butter
100g caster sugar
2 large eggs
100g self-raising flour
10ml or 10g of bake safe food colouring
Icing
You can obviously just buy Betty Crocker ready mixed
frosting or:
200g softened butter
900g icing sugar
400g full fat cream cheese
Decorations
1. Preheat the oven to 180°/GM4.
2. Grease and line two sandwich tins. I did two
sponges at a time as I only have two tins and my oven only fits two at a time!
3. Cream the butter and sugar together, add the
eggs one at a time and then mix in the flour. See – easy!
4. If dividing the mixture do it now into about 415g
a layer then add the food colouring and mix.
5. Put into a tin and bake for 25 minutes. If you
are cooking two at a time and have a gas oven then you’ll need to swap the shelf
they are on half way through.
6. Cool and turn out until ready to construct.
7. If making frosting then then ideally use a food
processor as icing sugar is messy! The quantities pack it to the max but you
can of course use a hand held whisk or free standing . So put the butter in
with the sugar and mix until combined through. Add the cream cheese and you're
done.
8. Then even out the top of the layers (you can
always leave the top one domed if you like). Use the height of the sides as a
guide and use a bread knife to saw through.
9. Sandwich the layers with a thin layer of
frosting and then finish off by covering the whole thing in it! I used hundreds
and thousands on the top but you can use whatever you like.
N.B. You can get some crumbs in the frosting when you do the
whole cake. I’d advise to do a thin layer around the whole cake not worrying
about crumbs running the lovely frosting. Pop into the fridge for 30 minutes
and then finish off with a thicker layer that should stay lovely and clear of
crumbs.
