RAINBOW CAKE

For the cake:
Preheat the oven to 150 °C. Grease and flour a 20cm round cake tin and line the base with a circle of baking paper.
Sieve the flour and sugar into the bowl of your cake mixer. Mash the soft butter to remove lumps and add to the mixing bowl with the beaten eggs, vanilla and milk. Briefly combine ingredients on low speed then give a quick mix to create a smooth sticky dough mixture.
Divide the mixture into 5 bowls. Add 1 teaspoon of each of the four food colours to four bowls to create red, yellow, blue and green cake mix. To the last bowl add ½ teaspoon yellow colour and ¼ tsp of red to create orange cake mix. For a less brightly coloured cake reduce the amounts of food colouring.
Spoon dollops of the red mixture into the prepared cake tin. Using a spatula, gently smooth out to the edges to create an even layer. Place dollops of the orange mixture on top of the red and smooth out in the same way. Repeat with the yellow, green and blue mixtures to create five layers.
Bake in the pre-heated oven for 1 ¼ hours or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean and ‘dryish’. Remove from the oven and allow cake to rest in the tin for 15 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.
For the icing:
Sieve the icing sugar into the bowl of your cake-mixer. Add the soft butter and beat until well blended and light in colour.
Stir in the essence.
Spread over the top and sides of the cooled cake. Use the back of a spoon to create swirls or if you’d like a smooth finish to the icing, dip a knife in hot water to spread the icing easily. Decorate with squiggles of multi-coloured writing icing.