Four-color vanilla birthday cake240 min · One 8-inch, two-layer cake; 16 slices · Recipe card
Ingredients
- 350 g all-purpose flour
- 12 g baking powder
- 4 g fine salt
- 240 g unsalted butter, softened
- 300 g caster or fine granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs, at room temperature (about 50 g each without shells)
- 10 g vanilla extract
- 200 g whole milk, at room temperature
- 400 g unsalted butter, softened
- 720 g icing sugar, sifted
- 48 g heavy cream, plus a little only if needed
- 8 g vanilla extract
- 3.2 g fine salt
- 4 small drops different pastel gel food colors, or as needed
Let’s make it
- Heat the oven to 175°C / 350°F conventional (155°C fan). Grease two 8-inch (20 cm) round cake pans, line their bases with parchment, and set them on the middle rack when baking. Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together.
- Beat the cake butter and sugar for 3–4 minutes until noticeably lighter. Beat in the eggs one at a time, scraping the bowl between additions. Add the vanilla.
- On low speed, add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the milk in two additions. Stop when the last streaks of flour disappear; do not keep beating.
- Divide evenly between the prepared pans and level. Bake for 30–35 minutes, checking toward the early end. The centers should spring back lightly and a skewer should emerge without wet batter. Cool in the pans for 15 minutes, then turn onto racks and cool completely.
- Beat the buttercream butter for 4 minutes. Add the sifted icing sugar in four additions on low speed. Add cream, vanilla and salt; beat until smooth, then mix on low for 2 minutes to reduce air pockets.
- Level the cooled cakes. Use about 220 g buttercream between the layers, stack, then apply a thin crumb coat. Chill for 20 minutes. Reserve about 150 g plain buttercream for lettering and finishing.
- Cover the sides with plain buttercream. Divide the remaining frosting equally between four bowls and tint each a different pastel shade.
- Lightly mark the center and quarter boundaries on the top using a folded parchment guide. Spread the first color within its quarter. Smooth with a small spatula; chill for 10 minutes if needed before adding the neighboring color. Repeat until all four quarters are covered.
- Fill small piping bags with the reserved plain frosting or contrasting colored frosting. Pipe one date, name or initial in each quarter. Add tiny hearts and a center dot or heart. Chill until firm enough to move.
Kitchen notes
Allow at least 90 minutes for cooling and several short chills during decoration. Contains wheat, eggs and milk. The amount of color depends on brand strength; the listed drops are a starting point. This is one flavor throughout, with four decorating colors.
Recipe in development · not kitchen-tested.
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