Rainbow Pound Cake!

POUND CAKES are the yummiest cakes in this whole world, there is no other cake for me to beat this Devil. The Butter : Sugar : Flour ratio in a pound cake is equal thus resulting in a rich, moist, buttery cake ( definitely not for you weight watchers our there & those preferring light cakes) and they are just yummm! And you know what? These are even more irresistible the next day, yeah sure to bring on the fight for that last crumb. Its the first time I tried adding soft drinks to a cake batter and batter was so aerated and fluffy (try not eating the cake batter, you will want some to be BAKED!!! But I have to admit that was one delicious batter!)

Now, I know my rainbow is all painted with wrong colours ;) It's time am going on my "Maternity" break (yes, the Stork has been circling my house for quite sometime now and its sure to make a stop pretty soon :) So I have been on my feet all week tidying my house and emptying my pantry since there won't be much cooking to do for sometime! And there it was, my 8 Wilton Gel Food Colours (definitely not rainbow colours) sitting unopened! Since I did have a cake baking in my Things To Do Before The Baby Comes List, I planned on making my hubby's-long-time-requested not-so-Rainbow Cake. Rainbow cake is best done with a White Cake since the colours show well, but I already made a White Cupcake and I wanted something to make my palate go BOOM!!! Hence the RAINBOW POUND CAKE!

I was little concerned about the gel food colour reacting funny with the acidity in the batter. So I went on asking some expert opinions and found it was totally safe to mix food gel colours in a acidity batter. So if you doubt the same Do Not Worry, the cake does not give any weird after taste or the batter does not react funny.

This Pound Cake is a must you try. So go ahead and do it as a rainbow or just Plain old Pound cake!

You Will Need:

For the Pound Cake:

3 Sticks / 340g of Unsalted Butter, Softened

3 Cups of Plain Flour

3 Cups of Superfine Sugar

5 Large Egg

2 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

A Cup / 240 ml of Sprite / 7Up, Room Temperature

Other Ingredients:

Gel Food Colour (I used Wilton)

The Baking:

Cream the butter till soft and fluffy. Then add sugar a cup at a time and beat till the sugar is well incorporated and the batter is fluffy. Then beat in one egg at time making sure to fully incorporate each egg after each addition.

Pour in the vanilla extract and mix well. Sift in the flour a cup at a time and mix briefly after each addition. Now pour in the sprite and beat on low speed till everything is well combined.

Divide the mixture into any many portions as you wish, depending on the number of colours you are planning to do. I did five colours.

Line / grease a baking tin, round, bundt, loaf tin anything you have (I used a loaf tin) and pour in the cake batter, in desired pattern. Checkout the post on Not MarthaExperiments in Rainbow Cake, she has some cool stuffs on that perfect rainbow swirls in each slice. Bake in a preheated oven till the cake is completely cooked i.e, until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Let the cake cool in the tin for an hour or so before you invert it onto a wire rack. Let it cool on the wire rack for another hour or so before you start slicing it. Hot cakes are so fragile, they will crumble.

Baking Temperature: 180 Degree Celsius

Baking Time: Approx 60 mins

Cooling Time: 2 - 3 hrs

Important Pointers:

Check my Tips for Cake Baking post for basic tips & tricks on cake baking!
Pound cakes take a long time to bake and the top does brown. So don't panic if you find the top is browning too fast too soon. Simply cover with a foil and continue baking.