Michelle Darmody: My fool-proof rainbow cake recipe for your Cork Pride celebrations

Irish Examiner

26-07-2025

This is not a cake I would ordinarily bake, I find the amount of colour and faff off-putting.
I am making an exception today to celebrate Pride.
One of my old friends, Tonie Walsh was involved in the first Pride Parade in Ireland in 1983. It took courage and defiance to walk the streets of our capital at a time when being in a relationship with someone you love was illegal and posed a danger to your safety.
We have not ironed out all of the negative attitudes in Irish society, I loathe to paint us as perfect, but we have come a long way.
I have participated in many Pride parades over the past decades and seen first-hand the overwhelming support and joy that is spread on that day.
In recent years, it has become less of a community event and grown bigger than Tonie, or any of his friends, could have imagined back on that afternoon in 1983, but perhaps this is a good thing.
The wide reach, the big companies coming on board; let's take the positive from this and celebrate and embrace the energy, creativity and fun that opening up to inclusivity and diversity brings to a society.
So, for today, I will tip a little extra bit of rainbow colouring into my sponge, and smile to myself at an Ireland I am happier to be a part of.
Rainbow Cake
recipe by:Michelle Darmody
For today, I will tip a little extra bit of rainbow colouring into my sponge and smile to myself at an Ireland I am happier to be a part of.
Servings
16
Preparation Time 
60 mins
Cooking Time 
25 mins
Total Time 
1 hours 25 mins
Course 
Dessert
Ingredients for the cake:
420g butter, soft
420g caster sugar
8 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tsp vanilla
420g self raising flour
for the icing:
420g butter, soft
840g icing sugar
2 tsp vanilla
a dash of milk
Method
Preheat your oven to 160°C/gas mark 3 and line five 8-inch round spring form tins with parchment.
Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the vanilla to your eggs.
Turn your mixer down low or use a wooden spoon to add half of the eggs into the butter and sugar.
Add a tablespoon of the flour and then add the rest of the eggs.
Add in the rest of the flour until combined.
Scoop the mixture into five bowls and add a drop of different colour food colouring to each bowl and combine.
Scoop each of the mixtures into the five prepared tins.
Bake the cake for 25 minutes until baked through.
Allow to cool in the tins until cool enough to handle then place onto wire racks to cool completely.
To make the icing, whisk the icing ingredients until light and fluffy.
Once the cakes have completely cooled, trim them and sandwich them together with the buttercream, one on top of the other, in a neat pile.
Add a thin layer of icing to the outside of the cake and let it cool.
Cover the outside of the cake in icing and smooth it out.
Baker's tips:
For the smoothest batter it is best to have all of your ingredients at room temperature.
For the five 8-inch round tins use either spring form or loose base tins. It is unlikely that you can fit five tins comfortably in your oven so the cakes can be baked in batches. Keep the tin in the fridge or a cool place while you are waiting to bake them.
In this recipe, I bake at a lower temperature than I would normally choose, because the sponges are very thin, this helps to prevent them drying out.
Gel food coloring is concentrated so it allows you to use less than liquid colours. Gel food coloring is also thicker so will not affect the consistency of the batter. You can easily buy natural food colourings.
It is important to properly cool the cakes as it improves stability when stacking and is essential for adding the icing. To ensure flat layers trim or level them by using a serrated knife to trim off any domed tops. Assemble the layers carefully.
When icing, apply a thin layer called a 'crumb coat' to seal in crumbs, then chill the cake, if possible, in the fridge, or else a cool place before applying the final icing. Using a cake scraper and turntable can help get smooth sides and clean edges.
Placing the cake in the fridge to firm up helps to make it more secure and easier to move and slice.
Three delicious variations:
Lemon layer cake
This can easily be transformed into a lemon layer cake, with or without the food colouring.
Add a generous amount of lemon zest into the batter. I would suggest the zest of 6 lemons.
For the icing, use a mixture of the zest of 2 oranges and 1 lemon, this gives a nice colour as well as flavour.
Chocolate buttercream
You can use a chocolate buttercream to coat the cake and between the layers in place of the vanilla 420g of soft butter, with 800g icing sugar, 40g of cocoa powder and a dash of milk.
Whisk until completely light and fluffy.
Coffee layer cake
Coffee butter cream is delicious! You can also make a variation with a coffee buttercream used to sandwich the layers.
Whisk 420g of soft butter, soft with 800g icing sugar, 2 very strong espressos, making up about 30mls of liquid.
Whisk until completely light and fluffy.
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