Name: Watercolour Cake
Cook time: 30 min
Yield: 16 Servings
Ingredients: Unsalted Butter: 610g; Caster Sugar: 610g; Eggs: 9; Self Raising Flour: 150g; Plain Flour: 460g; Milk: 3 tbsp; Vanilla Extract: 1 tsp; Unsalted Butter: 375g; Icing Sugar: 750g; Vanilla Extract: 1 1/2 tsp; Gel Food Colouring; Strawberry Jam: 3 tbsp; Decorations: Sweets or cake

Ingredients

Sponge

610g Unsalted Butter

610g Caster Sugar

9 Eggs

150g Self Raising Flour

460g Plain Flour

3 tbsp Milk

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Buttercream

375g Unsalted Butter

750g Icing Sugar

1 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

Gel Food Colouring

3 tbsp Strawberry Jam

Sweets or cake Decorations

Directions

I made this cake a few months ago for my Mum and Dads birthdays. I’d not made a four layer cake before and I wanted to get as much practice as possible for selling cakes. I went for a vanilla madeira sponge with vanilla buttercream which is nice and simple so I could concentrate on the decorating. I watch lots of cake decorating videos and I wanted to try out a watercolour cake because they look really pretty.

watercolour cake

You could use any colours you want but I used orange, purple, pink and green because I topped the cake with Dolly mixtures which are one of my dads favourite sweets. Use your favourite colours or match them to whatever you’re topping the cake with. The watercolour effect is actually quite easy if you know how and have the right tools to help you.

watercolour cake

Step 1

Mark as Complete

Sponge

Preheat the oven to 170ºc and grease and line four 8 inch cake tins.

Cream together the butter and sugar with a stand or hand mixer. Add the eggs one at a time and then mix in the flour.

Finally, add the milk and vanilla extract and mix again.

Step 2

Mark as Complete

Divide the mix between the 4 tins (I weighed mine to make sure it was equal). Bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Step 3

Mark as Complete

Buttercream

Beat the butter with the vanilla extract until smooth. Sift in half the icing sugar and mix before adding the remaining icing sugar. Put a large tablespoon of the buttercream into a small bowl. Do this for every colour you are going to do. I did four so I had four bowls.

Step 4

Mark as Complete

Once the cakes are cooled, turn them out and level them off with a sharp serrated knife if you need to. Place one layer on a cake board and spread a thin layer of buttercream on it followed by a layer of jam. Add the next sponge and repeat until you have added the last sponge.

Step 5

Mark as Complete

Cover the whole cake with a thin layer of buttercream and refrigerate for 30 minutes. While you're waiting you can add the food colouring to your small bowls of buttercream. Add a drop at a time until you get your desired colour.

Step 6

Mark as Complete

Take the cake out of the fridge and cover with the remaining white buttercream. I use a palette knife and a plastic smoothing tool. Use the palette knife to spread blobs of each colour onto the sides of the cake (start with a little - you can add more later). Use the smoothing tool to scrape around the cake in one movement. This spreads and smooths the colours. Add more colour if you need to and repeat. Once you're happy you can add your toppings.