How to make an Easy Rainbow Cake Recipe from Scratch – Seven Layer Rainbow Cake

Name: Easy Rainbow Cake Recipe from scratch aka Seven Layer Rainbow Cake
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 15 servings
Ingredients: 360 grams All-purpose flour; 226 grams Unsalted butter; 300 grams White fine grain sugar; 5 Eggs (large); 250 ml Buttermilk; 2 tsp Vanilla; 2 tsp Baking powder; 1 tsp Baking soda; 1/2 tsp Salt; Food colors (red, orange, yellow, blue, green, indigo, violet - a few drops)

Make a perfect rainbow cake recipe with all the seven colors of the rainbow. This step by step tutorial with pictures and video shows you how to make a seven layer rainbow cake simple, easy and effortlessly. Whether you chose to use gel food colors or natural food colors to make the colors this is a birthday cake recipe any kid would love to celebrate with.

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Easy Rainbow Cake Recipe from Scratch, Seven Layer Rainbow Cake, How to make a Rainbow Cake Tutorial

Nothing beats having a rainbow cake to celebrate your kids birthday party. This was my son’s birthday cake (post updated – 2018). Well, having a mom as a cake decorator means my kids get more than one cake. So this was one of his three birthday cakes.

He has somehow not into chocolate cake recently. And he did not want any brown, white or black on his cake. Mama, can you make me a rainbow cake? I mean a rainbow drip cake? And I want colorful drip on top, no chocolate, or white or metallic. Now here the drip is, of course, white chocolate but he was ok with that since we were going to color it. Of course, if you wanted to make a drip with a different medium than you can, of course, use royal icing. I will share more details on how you can do that when I share how I made this Lolipop Rainbow Drip Cake – here.

Easy Rainbow Cake Recipe from Scratch, Seven Layer Rainbow Cake, How to make a Rainbow Cake Tutorial

About this rainbow cake recipe aka Rainbow Layer Cake (Save/Pin)

This is a simple, easy and quick recipe as you can see in the video below. The batter is straightforward and very traditional, meaning you cream the butter/sugar add eggs, flour and buttermilk and you are done. The baking is quick because you bake thinner layers unlike regular two in layers.

This cake here is seven layers of rainbow cake. You can make six but when you have kids like my Aadi who argue that a rainbow has seven, not six layers the easiest is to make the seventh layer. Most people omit the indigo layers because you either don’t get that color easily available.

Another thing to notice is that I have seven layers of cake and no support in the middle. Yes, that’s because we wanted a tall rainbow cake that we cut in one slice. If you doing a single tier like this with good Swiss meringue buttercream – this is possible. I will explain more in my post when I share how I made this Lolipop Rainbow Drip Cake soon.

Easy Rainbow Cake Recipe from Scratch, Seven Layer Rainbow Cake, How to make a Rainbow Cake Tutorial

Need to bake with the kids? Use my one bowl vanilla recipe

One of the fun things about making a rainbow cake is having the kids join in the fun. Which means you need a batter that can take a little kid abuse of over beating or under mixing! Know what I mean?

I have always had my kids bake a rainbow cake with me. I mean, they are the ones that get excited about the colors, so why not get them to mix! They love mixing and over mixing that color. My Rhea can beat the life out of the cake batter before she hands it over for baking, not to mention she also eats quite a bit of the butter/sugar mix as well as the cake batter.

So, when I bake with the kids I use my One Bowl Vanilla Cake Recipe. It has been abused by my kids on many occasions and still turns out absolutely delicious. Plus can you think of a cake recipe more easier than just adding all the ingredients in a bowl and mixing? Nah! It works perfectly every single time. No surprise the recipe has always been most popular with everyone on this blog.

Easy Rainbow Cake Recipe from Scratch, Seven Layer Rainbow Cake, How to make a Rainbow Cake Tutorial

Who has so many baking pans for a rainbow cake recipe?

I often get people who say I don’t have so many baking pans of the same size. Is it ok to mix the batter and leave it out while I reuse the pan and bake in batches?

First, Yes, this recipe can wait while you bake in batches but – why re-use baking pans when you can actually buy disposable baking trays. Yup!! I always use disposable baking trays when I ‘m baking a rainbow cake recipe. That way I do not have to wash my pans in between baking. And these are definitely affordable.

HandiFoil 7" TakeOut To-Go Round Disposable Aluminum Foil Pan sets with Flat Board Lids, 50 Count, 7 1/8"x 7 1/8" x 1 1/2" deep

List Price:$24.49

Price:$24.49

Price Disclaimer

Progress Pictures for how to make an Easy Rainbow Cake Recipe from Scratch with this seven layer rainbow cake.

Easy Rainbow Cake Recipe from Scratch, Seven Layer Rainbow Cake, How to make a Rainbow Cake Tutorial

Natural food coloring option

I always use food color gels. And yet, I know many of you would like to consider the option of using natural food colors. These days you do get some brand of natural color gels. Here I am sharing with you some option of fruit puree/juice that you can use to obtain colors naturally.
Start with 2 tbsp of fruit puree/juice and add more if needed.

It is very important to understand though that gel food color is not flavorless. Which means your batter will not only obtain the color of the fruit but also the taste and flavor.

Here are some options to consider.

Green – Juice of Kale or Spinach
Blue – Juice or puree of Blueberries
Purple – Juice of puree of Blackberries, grapes.
Red – Beetroot juice
Pink – red currents or Strawberries
Brown – Coffee or Chocolate
Orange – Carrot juice
Yellow – yellow beet/turmeric or Saffron

Easy Rainbow Cake Recipe from Scratch, Seven Layer Rainbow Cake, How to make a Rainbow Cake Tutorial

Let’s talk ingredients and substitutes – Rainbow Cake Recipe (Save/Pin)

All-purpose flour – this recipe works great with just regular plain flour. You do not need to use any special cake flour or self-raising flour. If you do need to substitute with other flour I suggest you read about the types of flour and substitutes here.
Butter – I prefer unsalted butter so I can control the amount of salt. If salted butter is all you get go-ahead and use it – just omit the salt in the recipe.
Sugar – White sugar means the colors of the rainbow will be bright and beautiful. I like the taste of brown sugar but that would not bring out the true colors in this cake.
Buttermilk – This contributes to a nice soft crumb in this cake. You can use store-bought buttermilk but homemade buttermilk takes no more than five minutes and here is how you make it – Homemade Buttermilk in 5 minutes.
Vanilla – Always use good quality vanilla. Ideally, it would be nice to use a clear vanilla extract or vanilla sugar to ensure the colors stay bright and beautiful. But I have often used my homemade vanilla extract with no issues.

Easy Rainbow Cake Recipe from Scratch, Seven Layer Rainbow Cake, How to make a Rainbow Cake Tutorial

Recipe – Easy Rainbow Cake aka Rainbow Layer Cake (Save/Pin)

Useful Tips and Tools

If you bake often, it would be a good idea to invest in a cake mixer. Because often we try to mix by hand and then we are too tired to give it enough creaming or mixing. So, if you are making this cake go head and remove that K-Mix or Kitchen Aid from your kitchen cabinet.You don’t have to buy an expensive stand mixer, a simple hand mixer works great too.
Having said that, a simple Bowl, whisk and Spatula with a little extra effort will do the trick too.
Personally, I believe in weighing ingredients by weight, which makes my kitchen scaleone of the most valuable items when baking.
The same goes for mymeasuring cups and measuring spoons. It’s always a good idea to have these handy and use them when baking rather than trying to guess measurements.
I think one set of baking pans is a must for anyone a home baker. Personally, I like to bake three layers rather than torte my cakes and it bakes faster too. For most of my layer cake recipes on this blog I use 3 x 6-inch round pans or 2 x 8-inch round pans.
Once baked always invert your cakes on a cooling rack. This encourages air circulation and prevents the steam from pooling at the bottom of the pan.
Every oven works differently. So the baking times are just guidelines. In the case of cakes, a skewer inserted in the center is a great indication. If the cake bakes too quick or too slow compared to the time given it might be a good idea to check if your oven needs calibration. An oven thermometer is a great little gadget to help keep the oven temperature in check. All you need to do then is adjust the temperature accordingly

Easy Rainbow Cake Recipe from Scratch, Seven Layer Rainbow Cake, How to make a Rainbow Cake Tutorial

Ingredients

All-purpose flour – 360 grams
Unsalted butter – 226 grams (2 stick )
White fine grain sugar – 300 grams (1 1/2 cup )
Eggs – 5 large
Buttermilk – 250 ml (1 cup)
Vanilla – 2 tsp
Baking powder – 2 tsp
Baking soda – 1 tsp
Salt – 1/2 tsp
Colors – red, orange, yellow, blue, green, indigo, violet – a few drops

Baking pans and height of our rainbow cake

If you want to make a 9-inch tall cake like this use seven – 5 1/2 inch round pans
If you want to make a 6-inch tall cake use six – 7 inch round cake pans

Method

Prepare batter

Preheat oven – 160 C / 320 F.
Grease and line your baking pans/foils.
Ensure all ingredients are at room temperature especially butter and eggs.
In a mixing bowl or use a bowl and whisk/spatula.
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add eggs one at a time.
Followed by the flour mixture and buttermilk in three additions.
Once you have a smooth batter.

Adding color to the batter

Divide batter between six or seven bowls approximately. I use similar bowls and a measuring cup.
To make a Rainbow Cake we need six or seven colors if you choose to make the last color.

Easy Rainbow Cake Recipe from Scratch, Seven Layer Rainbow Cake, How to make a Rainbow Cake Tutorial

Add the seven edible food colors straight out of the bottle – Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and violet.

Easy Rainbow Cake Recipe from Scratch, Seven Layer Rainbow Cake, How to make a Rainbow Cake Tutorial

Once all the colors are ready.
Pour the batter into the prepared baking pans.

Easy Rainbow Cake Recipe from Scratch, Seven Layer Rainbow Cake, How to make a Rainbow Cake Tutorial

Bake, cool, decorate

Bake in a preheated oven on the center rack – the layers take no more than 8 to 10 minutes.
Insert a skewer in the center at about 8-minute mark.

Easy Rainbow Cake Recipe from Scratch, Seven Layer Rainbow Cake, How to make a Rainbow Cake Tutorial

You can bake them in batches of two or three.
When baked cool them completely on a wire rack.
Decorate layered with frosting as required.

Easy Rainbow Cake Recipe from Scratch, Seven Layer Rainbow Cake, How to make a Rainbow Cake Tutorial

Tips for making the perfect Rainbow Cake Recipe

Always make sure the ingredients are at room temperature when you start mixing the batter.
For the color indigo, you will need to play with blue and red until you find the shade you are looking for. I find a ratio of 1 drop blue and two drops of red is a good ratio.
The colors will darken during baking so do not overdo the colors.
You don’t have to bake the batter all at once, you can bake them two at a time in batches.
These layers are thinner than regular cake layers so they bake real quick. It is very important to pay close attention to the baking time or these will dry out.
Always store the cake layers well wrapped in cling wrap to prevent them from drying out.

Don’t forget to save this recipe on Pinterest for later.
You can find a collection of my tutorials and recipes here on Pinterest.

Easy Rainbow Cake Recipe from Scratch, Seven Layer Rainbow Cake, How to make a Rainbow Cake Tutorial

Easy Rainbow Cake Recipe from scratch aka Seven Layer Rainbow Cake

5 from 14 votes

Print Pin Rate

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Adjust Servings Here: 15 servings

Calories: 356kcal

Author: Veena Azmanov

Prep Time: 10 mins

Cook Time: 20 mins

Total Time: 30 mins