In Pursuit of Domestic Goddessness: Yes! It is as awesome as it looks! Rainbow Cake with lemon curd filling and whipped cream frosting.

So The family I work for had their Aunt Mary come into town and it was her 70th birthday! (Also, K's been going CRAZY at home with her broken leg.) So we decided to go all out on the cake!

I'd seen the rainbow cake a long time ago, and thought it might be time to pull it out! I followed Oven Love's link to Wisk Kid: Say it with Cake and used it for our cake recipe!

White Cake (but not really)

2 sticks (226 g) butter, room temp
2 1/3 c (466 g) sugar
5 egg whites, room temp
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 c (375 g) flour
4 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 1/2 c (355 g) milk, warmed for 30 sec in microwave to bring to room temp
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple GEL food coloring. Liquid will not be vibrant enough!

Preheat the oven to 350F degrees. Oil and line well! how ever many 9” cake pans you have (We had 2 and just reused them).

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Cream the sugar and butter, then add the egg whites (I cracked them all into one bowl) and add them a little at a time. Add the vanilla and mix until fully incorporated. Then, alternating between wet and dry, add the milk and flour mixture in two parts.

Divide the batter amongst 6 bowls and then whisk a fair amount of the appropriate food color into each bowl. Keep in mind that the color of the unbaked batter will be the color of the baked batter. Pour into the pans and bake for 15 minutes each.

When you remove them from the oven, let them rest on the cooling rack, in the pan, for ten minutes. Then flip, cover, and let cool.

I left the parchment on the bottom of the cakes for stability until we stacked them as the layers were quite thin.

While the Cakes were baking/cooling. We tackled the lemon curd.

LEMON CURD FILLING
We doubled the recipe found here.

3 oz. (6 Tbs.) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
2/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1 tsp. grated lemon zest

In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer, about 2 min. Slowly add the eggs and yolks. Beat for 1 min. Mix in the lemon juice. The mixture will look curdled, but it will smooth out as it cooks.

This is not my picture, it's from the recipe, but it's good to know what it should look like!

In a medium, heavy-based saucepan, cook the mixture over low heat until it looks smooth. (The curdled appearance disappears as the butter in the mixture melts.) Increase the heat to medium and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens, about 15 min. It should leave a path on the back of a spoon and will read 170°F on a thermometer. Don't let the mixture boil. (AND DON'T LET IT SCORCH!)

This is not my picture, it's from the recipe, but it's good to know what it should look like!

Remove the curd from the heat; stir in the lemon zest. Transfer the curd to a bowl. Press plastic wrap on the surface of the lemon curd to keep a skin from forming and chill the curd in the refrigerator. The curd will thicken further as it cools. Covered tightly, it will keep in the refrigerator for a week and in the freezer for 2 months.

We used most of it for the cake, but some of it was left for snacking :

Finally the WHIPPED CREAM FROSTING!

It's just basic whipped cream: 2 cups heavy whipping cream, 2 tsp vanilla, 2 Tbsp sugar.

But the recipe I used said to mix the ingredients in the bowl you'll use and let them all chill together for 30 minutes or so in the fridge.

(Were I to do this again, I would make 3 cups worth of whipping cream.)

So we started stacking the cakes, purple on the bottom, red on the top. On each level we piped a circle of whipped cream to keep the lemon curd in, then spooned lemon curd into the center.