Rainbow Piñata Cake

Hi everyone and welcome back to the Tea Cozy Kitchen. So, I mentioned in my last post that I was doing a bit of baking at the weekend for a first birthday party. I thought I would share with you the cake that I baked and also the process which was involved in making this cake.

For this first birthday party I made a Rainbow Piñata Cake. I mean what could be better for a kids party than a brightly coloured cake that explodes smarties when you cut into it!  For the cake sponge I just used a very simple all in one Victoria sponge method with a little added vanilla and made four layers with it. I used Mary Berry's Victoria sponge recipe as you really just cant go wrong with a recipe by her. I mean Mary Berry knows her cakes. To get the colour on the inside I used some gel food colouring. I wanted the colour to be vibrant so I used quite a lot (maybe could have done with a wee bit less, the colour was almost fluorescent).

As you can see the outside of the cake was decorated very simply with a light and fluffy vanilla buttercream and topped with some fresh berries. I wanted the outside to not give any hints on what was hiding on the inside. I did two layers of the buttercream to try and get an opaque finish! It was pretty hard to achieve this as I have made so many semi-naked cakes recently.

Between the cake layers was a thick layer of buttercream but also a good bit of strawberry jam. I always think that vanilla and strawberry jam screams kids birthday cake. To get the smarties in the centre I used a cookie cutter to cut a circle in the centre of the first three layers. When they were stacked and assembled with buttercream there was a column down the middle that I was able to fill with smarties. The top layer had no hole and was set on top to stop the smarties falling out.

 And that's how I made this Rainbow Piñata Cake, I think it's possibly one of the most fun cakes I have ever made and it went down a treat with the kids and adults alike. What's your favourite thing that you have baked? I would love to know! Thanks so much for reading,

Rachael xx.