St Patrick's Day - Leprechaun Trap Cake - Rainbow Cake

I love reading other blogs and am always seeking inspritation.

Sometimes I discover something completely new,  something  that I've never heard of, and  I just have to try it!

Early in February I was looking at "not martha" and on Megan's  side bar there was a picture of a Rainbow Cake: Leprechaun Trap Cake!  Well, I just had to read all about it, and you can too, just look here.

I thought the cake looked fabulous, but as I don't have an angel food cake tin, I decided on a different rainbow cake.

My  next step was to find a recipe for a rainbow cake, I did an internet search and the first cake I saw was stunning, you can see it, here. (There is a video link, so you can see the cake being made, as well.)

I read the recipe and as I'm not great at American measures I decided to stick to my old, tried and tested Victoria Sandwich cake mixture. Noticing that Martha had used 5 eggs I opted for a 5 egg cake.

So I used 10oz butter and 10oz sugar, which I creamed together.  I added the 5 eggs (beaten) and sifted in 10oz self raising flour.

I then divided the cake mixture between 6 bowls and the fun really started.

I really wanted a striking cake, so used quite a lot of colouring in each bowl.  I used 6 rather then 7 colours as I thought indigo might be tricky, so I went for red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet.

I baked each cake in a 9inch greased and lined sandwich tin. (I had to bake 3 and then 3, as I only have 3 tins.)

The sponges were quite thin when they came out of the oven , but once I layered them on top of each other, (with parchment paper between) I saw that the cake was going to be a good size.

I made a batch of buttercream, which I flavoured with a hint of orange blossom, and started to layer the cake, as I didn't want the cake to taste sickly sweet, I put thin layers of icing between each piece of cake.

Because I still wanted to make the Leprecaun Trap I decided to cut out a circle from the top two layers of cake, I used a cookie cutter for this. Once the red layer was on the cake, I covered it all with more white butter icing (I had to make a second batch).  I sprinkled shamrocks around the top of the cake, avoiding the 'trap' and then put the cake in the fridge for half an hour,  to allow the icing to set.

Rather then pretzels I decided to use some cocktail sticks for my 'trap', they fitted easily into the iced cake, and I thought it would be fun to have a leaping Leprecaun heading for the gold!

I tested this cake on a few friends, they were delighted with the rainbow layer once the cake was cut.  I am now planning to make a second cake, for my daughter to take into school on Friday to share with her friends and teachers.  I think they'll all love it!

This cheeky leprechaun is after the gold

The layers of rainbow cake

A thin slice goes a long way!

The colours being added to the cake

Into the cake tins

The baked cake is really vibrant

The violet layer awaiting icing

Mixing the butter icing

Layering the cake

Shamrocks (and green edible glitter) on top of the cake

Setting the trap

A pile of tempting gold coins

Waiting for the leprechaun to see the gold!

a delicious slice of cake!