Description

This super easy homemade rainbow cake is the perfect celebration cake for Pride Month, birthdays, and more! And guess what?! It’s naturally VEGAN, eggless, dairy free, and only uses natural colors, yet you’d never know by the taste. Just a delicious rainbow cake

Ingredients

Scale

Rainbow Cake:

1 1/4 cups (300 grams) unsweetened dairy free milk, room temperature
2 tsp apple cider vinegar (to be mixed with dairy free milk milk)
3 2/3 cups (460 grams) all-purpose flour or gluten free 1-to-1 baking flour, sifted
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 cup (250 grams) granulated sugar
3/4 cup (170 grams) salted Flora Plant Butter, room temperature
3/4 cup (190 grams) unsweetened applesauce, room temperature
2 tbsp vanilla extract
Vegan red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple food colorings (liquid or powder)

Vegan Vanilla Buttercream:

2 cup salted Flora Plant Butter, softened
4 cups organic powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2–4 tbsp unsweetened dairy free milk

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease six 6″ cake pans with cooking oil, and line them with parchment paper. Set aside. If you only have three 6” cake pans, then you’ll need to divide the recipe in half, baking the first three colors in the first round, the second three colors the second round.
Prepare the vegan buttermilk. Combine the dairy free milk with the apple cider vinegar, and set aside to sit for 5-6 minutes. You can weigh and measure the remaining ingredients during this time.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside.
Make the batter: In a stand mixer with paddle attachment or a large bowl with hand mixer, cream together the Flora Plant Butter and sugar until fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Scrape down the sides as needed. Then add in the applesauce and vanilla extract. Mix again on medium speed until combined, scraping down the sides and at the bottom of the bowl as needed. Add in about half of the dry mixture, along with half of the vegan buttermilk, and mix on medium speed until just combined. Add in the remaining dry mixture and vegan buttermilk, and mix on medium speed until there are just no more dry streaks. Make sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl as well as the sides.
Divide the batter into 6 bowls evenly (you should yield about 1260 grams of batter, so each cake should yield about 210 grams of batter). Add in the vegan plant based colors to each bowl, and mix just until the color is evenly distributed. Pour the batter into their respective cake pans, bake for 25-30 minutes in 6″ cake pans, or until the toothpick comes out clean. (for three 8″ cake pans, bake for 27-30)
Remove from the oven and allow the cakes to cool in their pans for 10 minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack to cool completely. Once cooled completely (there is absolutely no warmth to the touch!), then you can prepare your buttercream.

Vegan Vanilla Buttercream:

When ready to frost the cakes, add Flora Plant Butter to a large bowl or stand mixer and cream for 2-3 minutes.
Add in 1 cup of powdered sugar at a time, continuing the beat the mixture until it’s a thick buttercream.
Add in vanilla and 2-4 tablespoons of coconut/almond milk and continue to beat until the desired texture is reached.
Frost cake and enjoy! You can decorate with more rainbow icing, flowers, etc.

Notes

Gluten free: swap in gluten free 1:1 baking flour, such as Bob’s Red Mill in the blue bag.

Refined sugar free: you can make this rainbow cake refined sugar free by using coconut sugar or a granulated sugar-free sweetener. However, the coconut sugar will alter the colors of the cake slightly, making them more caramel, and some granulated sugar-free sweeteners DO alter the texture of the cake, so please keep that in mind.

Vegan food colorings: I recommend using all natural vegan food coloring in the form of powders. Suncore Foods has an array of different rainbow colors, all derived from plants that have been dehydrated and ground into a powder. You can also use liquid food coloring, such as Nomeca, which is a vegan-friendly liquid food color.

Decorating: I used Wilton Tips, along with an offset spatula, cake turntable, and bench scraper.