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Surprise Pinata Rainbow Cake

November 10, 2013

I love Pinterest, it is a wonderfully visual place for inspiration and ideas. Two such ideas popping up a lot, are the gorgeous RAINBOW CAKES and more recently the Pinata Cakes (cakes filled with M&Ms or Smarties). I decided that I wanted to have a go at BOTH for Pip Squeak’s 4th Birthday party which was “Unicorn” themed. We had already been collecting Unicorn Party Ideas and we decided anything “rainbow” would be good. Make sure you also take a look at these Rainbow Cookies – my kids ADORE making these and they are a great activity in the run up to a party to keep kids busy! And THIS would make a great “party bag” idea for a rainbow party!!

Rainbow Surprise Cake 2

PS I have been asked about the pink sandwiches in the background: they are just a little pink food dye added to our bread machine!

Always wanting to be one to credit, I looked for the original Rainbow Cake Source… boy was it an epic journey:  With the help of Creative Playhouse‘s googling skills we discovered that the  Whisk Kid probably popularised it when she made the cake for the notrious blogger hater Martha Stewart (she doesn’t like sharing a slice of her cake with anyone). But then Whatever popped up, a little more digging… and Off the Meat Hook .. could this go on for ever? Yes! Retrolife and then of course  The Imagination Tree made a lovely Rainbow Cake as part of her fun Willy Wonka party! Rainbow cakes EVERYWHERE. The moral of the story? It is impossible to trace things back to the originator.

Surprise Rainbow Cake Ingredients

I decided to go for a simple Victoria Sponge to make our cakes. I took our “normal” recipe and doubled it to make 6 cakes (one Victoria Sponge recipe is usually enough for two cakes, but I decided to make 3 thinner ones, to reduce the “stack” a little):

  • 450g Selfraising Flour
  • 450g Butter
  • 450g Sugar
  • 8 eggs
  • 2-4 tea spoons of vanilla essence
  • Food colouring (I used food colouring gels called Sugarflair)
  • A drop of milk if required

BAKE at 180C

(This made the SIX cakes. But I made half of the above TWICE)

  • 2 pots of double cream
  • Icing Sugar
  • Smarties or M&Ms

I used 3 20cm/ 8″ cake tins

Surprise Rainbow Cake Methodology

I made two batches of 3 cakes. I thought a “normal” Victoria Sponge recipe quantity would be easier to manage that the double quantity. As our oven isn’t very good and I only had 3 cake tins anyway, this work out just fine anyway.

1) Weigh your mixing bowl BEFORE you add any ingredients and make note of the weight

2) Mix all your ingredients until you have a smooth cake mix (you can add a little milk to make it runnier)

3) Weigh the bowl + ingredients and work out how much dough you have. It happened to be that my quantities approximated 900g, which I divided into 3 batches.

4) Add a “tip of a knife” of the food gel in each bowl and mix well. If need be add a LITTLE more colouring to get the desired colour.

5) Scoop into your three cake tins and bake 12-15min. Use a knife to test if the cake is cooked through.

FAIL ALERT

Now.. here is where I made a mistake. I squeezed all three tins into our not so good oven. I know it isn’t good – it is old and needs replacing, the back is hotter than the front (the door doesn’t shut properly etc). So… one of my 3 cakes came out all lopsided – one side rose higher than the other”. Argh.

So with the NEXT three, I actually started cooking ONE tin at  a time. Yes, a little more time consuming, but each layer is small and cooked in 12-15min. And they turned out SO MUCH better….

Cool on a rack (I didn’t have enough rack space, so also used some Pizza trays.

Pinata Cake How TO

6) Once fully cooled – actually left them overnight and finished them halfway through the unicorn birthday party – beat your double cream with a little icing sugar to sweet until stiff.

7) Using a large cookie cutter, cut a hole in each of the first 5 layers. (I kept the circles I cut out and made a mini tower cake for a play date that could make the party and who was coming to play the next day).

Rainbow Pinata Cake How To

8) Stack your cakes in rainbow order – purple, blue, green, yellow, orange. With some cream between each layer.

9) Fill with Smarties.

FAIL ALERT

Smarties DO react with moisture (i.e. the cream), so it is worth doing this shortly before serving. If you have to make this cake ahead of time, I suggest the more “non melty” M&Ms.

Surprise Rainbow Cake How To

10) Add the red layer to the top (no hole) and then cover in cream.

Final Cake

We decorated our cake with some Unicorn Playmobil.

And finished! Happy kids.

Oh… and the next day, we had a playdate for one of  the friends that couldn’t make it… the kids got an unBirthday Cake. Can you guess where it came from?! Waste no want not and all that!!

UnBirthday Cake

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Filed Under: Party Ideas, Recipes 32 Comments

Comments

  1. Emma says

    November 10, 2013 at 7:38 pm

    ooooh, that is amazing Maggy! Did Pip Squeak like it?

    Reply
    • Red Ted Art says

      November 10, 2013 at 7:46 pm

      Yes she did! But she was quickly distracted with playing with her presents again! Sigh.

      Reply
  2. Jenny from Cheetahs In My Shoes and Just Photos By Me says

    November 10, 2013 at 8:18 pm

    I am so glad it worked out Maggy! I’ve been keeping my fingers crossed – I think the small hole worked brilliantly x

    Reply
    • Red Ted Art says

      November 10, 2013 at 8:30 pm

      I think a dash of salt really helped too!

      Reply
  3. Jo says

    November 10, 2013 at 9:37 pm

    Hi. Is the ingredients quantities you give for just one batch of 3 cakes – do you need double the quantities stated (if that makes sense!) X

    Reply
    • Red Ted Art says

      November 11, 2013 at 8:24 am

      The 450g etc is for ALL SIX cakes. I made half twice.

      Reply
  4. Susan G says

    November 10, 2013 at 10:09 pm

    Looks amazing! Did you miss eggs in the sponge recipe though?

    Reply
    • Red Ted Art says

      November 11, 2013 at 8:24 am

      Goodness, clearly I was tired from the party!!!! Yes, the eggs were missing. Have added them now. Thank you.

      Reply
      • Susan G says

        November 11, 2013 at 12:04 pm

        Yeah was trying to figure out if it was 6 or 8 eggs! I’m so making this for my own next birthday, forget the kids!

        Reply
  5. rebecca says

    November 11, 2013 at 12:27 am

    this is genius

    Reply
  6. Mama Syder says

    November 11, 2013 at 7:21 pm

    Total genius! I love it! x

    Reply
  7. Mammasaurus says

    November 12, 2013 at 1:41 pm

    Looks super Maggy – and I love the pink sarnies too!

    Reply
    • Red Ted Art says

      November 12, 2013 at 5:27 pm

      Thank you Mammasaurus, was very happy with the result!!!

      Reply
  8. Kat says

    November 20, 2013 at 4:04 pm

    This looks awesome Maggy! It was really fun searching for the original 🙂 Happy Birthday to Pipsqueak! 😀

    Reply
    • Red Ted Art says

      November 20, 2013 at 4:28 pm

      Yes it was fun, wasn’t it!? Thanks for your help!

      Reply
  9. Katy Addis says

    January 16, 2014 at 9:42 am

    What a beautiful cake! Thanks for putting this up and including the tips. Am definitely going to make this for my boys next birthday xx

    Reply
    • Red Ted Art says

      January 16, 2014 at 9:52 am

      Lovely!! Have fun with it!

      Reply
  10. Sachelle says

    February 6, 2014 at 12:01 pm

    What a fabulous idea! Freddie’s 5th bday in April and I am defo going to give it a go!

    Reply
    • Red Ted Art says

      February 6, 2014 at 1:52 pm

      So pleased!! Have fun and do post some photos!

      Reply
  11. Tammie says

    February 13, 2014 at 9:39 pm

    Hi, I was wondering when you say pots of double cream, do you mean heavy cream or whipping cream & we have 500ml & 1 litre cartons…which would it be?
    Also would all purpose flour work?
    It is my daughter’s 5th b.day on Monday & would like to make this.
    Thank you for your help.

    Reply
    • Red Ted Art says

      February 14, 2014 at 9:13 am

      Double cream here in the UK is like “thicker whipping cream”, though you should be ok with whipping cream too. 1 liter craton should just about be enough! And if your use all purpose flour, you have to add bakind powder to help make the cake rise!

      Reply
  12. Jo says

    February 15, 2014 at 12:41 am

    I love this! Would it be ok to make it about 2 hours before serving with the smarties in do you think?

    Reply
    • Red Ted Art says

      February 15, 2014 at 8:50 am

      I am nervous about teh smarties “bleeding” when in contact with the cream. Which is why I assembled it AT the party. You could use M&Ms which are more hard wearing instead.. just make sure you don’t have any peanut allergy guests!

      Reply
  13. Clare says

    July 16, 2014 at 12:14 pm

    This cake is awesome and I am planning to make one for my twins’ second birthday.
    It was so lovely to see you try and trace the original recipe – because the first I heard of a rainbow piñata cake was in the recent Asda magazine – and I have to say it looks a heck of a lot like yours…

    Reply
  14. Amanda says

    October 24, 2014 at 12:08 pm

    Thanks for this recipe! Just made this cake for my sister’s birthday and it was a huge success!

    Reply
  15. Susan says

    April 20, 2015 at 11:18 am

    At what tempreture did you bake them? the recipe doesn’t say

    Reply
    • Red Ted Art says

      April 20, 2015 at 12:32 pm

      Ah sorry, will amend – 180C

      Reply
      • Susan says

        April 22, 2015 at 4:11 pm

        hank you 😀 gonna try it out this friday

        Reply
        • Red Ted Art says

          April 23, 2015 at 9:08 am

          Wonderful! Enjoy!

          Reply

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