This Pot of Gold Rainbow Cake is the perfect dessert for St. Patrick's Day! Six colourful rainbow cake layers, filled and decorated with the most precious gold goodies!
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*Post/Photos/Recipe Updated 03/14/2020*
Pot of Gold Rainbow Cake
St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner and this rainbow layer cake with a pot of gold hidden inside is the perfect way to celebrate the holiday!
This cake is super adorable — I just love the difference between the “simple” green outside vs the colourful surprise inside. Slicing into this cake is literally like discovering gold at the end of the rainbow!
4 Parts to this Cake
Although there are quite a few steps in this recipe, it is pretty simple to assemble once everything is prepared. There are four parts to this cake:
- Rainbow Cake Layers: I’ve updated this entire recipe, including the rainbow cake. I’ve gathered up some of the vanilla cake based recipes I’ve posted, and made a few tweaks to create six super soft and moist rainbow cake layers!
- Vanilla Buttercream: you may look at the recipe and think “holy moly that’s a lot”. Well that’s because we need to fill, crumb coat and frost this tall 6-layer cake.
- Gold Drip: a simple ganache made with gold chocolate chips I found at my local bulk store.
- Gold Piñata Filling: Collect a variety of gold sprinkles and gold wrapped candy to create an impressive pot of gold filling!
The good thing, however, is that most of this cake can be made ahead of time! You can make the cake layers a few days or even a week ahead and store them in the freezer. Then make the buttercream and store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator or freezer. Just let it thaw out before whipping it back up. So the day you plan to serve the cake, you can quickly assemble it without any stress!
Rainbow Cake Layers
There are 6 colours of the rainbow meaning we’ve gotta make 6 layers of cake! To make things easier, I split the recipe and each batch makes 3 layers. So start by making the red, orange and yellow layers, then once those are done baking, prepare the next batch for the purple, green and blue layers.
To make the cake extra fluffy, we’re gonna be creaming the butter and sugar together for 5 minutes until it’s pale and doubled in volume. To the butter/sugar mixture, add sour cream to soften the crumb, vegetable oil for moisture, vanilla for plenty of flavour and eggs for structure.
Make sure you use buttermilk, don’t substitute for anything else. Buttermilk gives the cake a super soft and tender crumb and phenomenal flavour. Don’t have buttermilk? No worries, I’ll include instructions on how to make your own in the recipe notes.
You’ll need to alternate between adding the dry ingredients and the buttermilk. If you add the buttermilk all at once, the batter will separate and ruin the cake. If you add all of the dry ingredients all at once, the batter will be too thick, which means you’ll end up over mixing, which ultimately leads to a tough cake.
Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream
We’re gonna fill and frost this tower of rainbow deliciousness with the fluffiest vanilla frosting! This is a big batch of frosting because we’re gonna need to fill, crumb coat and frost the cake in another thick layer of frosting. To make the mixing process easier, a stand mixer is always the best bet.
Since we use a lot of icing sugar, I used a combination of unsalted and salted butter. The salted butter will help cutback the sweetness. We also add vanilla for plenty of flavour and heavy cream which gives us the creamiest, fluffiest and smoothest buttercream!
Once you’ve finished making the frosting, fill and crumb coat the cake. While the cake is chilling in the refrigerator, tint the remaining frosting green to frost the outside.
Gold Drip & Splats
We got our St. Patrick’s Day rainbow and St. Patrick’s Day green, now we need that St. Patty’s Day GOLD! For the outside, I decided to take a page out of this New Year’s Eve Cake and threw on some gold splats.
To make the splats I used a clean food-safe brush, edible gold paint and lots of newspaper to protect the floors and walls from my mad artist skills 😉.
For the drip, I created a ganache using some gold chocolate chips I found at my local Bulk Barn. Now obviously this would be a rare product to find, so you can use caramel chips or peanut butter chips to get the same deep golden colour!
Assembling the Cake
To assemble the cake, you wanna start by cutting a hole in the centre of the cake layers. This is where the goodies go! I used a 3-inch wide biscuit cutter to cut out the centre of the layers.
To ensure the holes were all even and lined up, I started by cutting out one layer, then I lined it up on top of another cake layer and used the cutter to leave an indention showing where to cut out the hole.
You don’t want to cut a hole our of each layer (which is the mistake I made, AGAIN!). You’ll want to keep the red and purple cake layers whole. This is the top and bottom of the cake, so you’ll need the bottom layer to hold the filling and the top layer to seal it in.
Pot of Golden Goodies
For the hidden golden treasure, I used gold chocolate coins, gold wrapped Ferrero Rocher’s with the brown cups removed, gold sixlets, confetti sprinkles and pearls! You can use any golden sprinkles or gold-wrapped candies you want. If it’s gold and edible, stuff it in this cake!
To decorate the top of the cake, I placed a few wrapped ferrero rochers around the top, the same way I’d pipe my frosting. Then I placed some large and small chocolate gold coins in between and covered the middle with gold confetti and pearl sprinkles. This updated version of my POG cake pops way more than the old one!
You don’t have to decorate exactly like I did, just grab your gold goodies and get creative!
That’s all! Super easy, super gorgeous and super rich. If you’re looking for a fun and creative dessert to celebrate this St. Patrick’s Day, this is the perfect recipe for you! Your guests will be impressed when they discover all the sweet treasure hidden inside this lucky cake!
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Let's get baking!
Pot of Gold Rainbow Cake
This Pot of Gold Rainbow Cake is the perfect dessert for St. Patrick's Day! Six colourful rainbow cake layers, filled and decorated with the most precious gold goodies!
Ingredients
Red Yellow and Orange Cake Layers:
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 4 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- ⅓ cup sour cream, room temperature
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- 4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 and ½ cups buttermilk, room temperature
- Red gel food colouring
- Orange gel food colouring
- Yellow gel food colouring
Blue Green and Purple Cake Layers:
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 4 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- ⅓ cup sour cream, room temperature
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- 4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 and ½ cups buttermilk, room temperature
- Blue gel food colouring
- Green gel food colouring
- Purple gel food colouring
Vanilla Buttercream:
- 1 and ½ cups unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 and ½ cups salted butter, room temperature
- 10 cups powdered sugar, sifted
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup heavy whipping cream
- Green gel food colouring
Pot of Gold Filling:
- Gold Chocolate Coins
- Ferrero Rochers (brown cups removed)
- Gold Sixlets
- Gold Confetti Sprinkles
- Gold Pearls
Gold Drip:
- 1 cup caramel or peanut butter baking chips
- ⅓ cup heavy cream
Gold Splats:
- Edible Gold Paint
- Small Paintbrush
Instructions
For the Red Yellow and Orange Layers:
- Preheat oven to 350° F (177°C). Prepare three 8-inch round cake pans with parchment rounds, and grease the sides. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk to combine, set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed until pale and fluffy, 4-5 minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl.
- Mix in sour cream, vegetable oil and vanilla extract until combined.
- Lower the speed to medium-low and add eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition until just combined. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl.
- Alternately add dry ingredients in thirds and buttermilk in 2 additions to the batter, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.
- Beat each addition just until combined. Divide batter equally between 3 bowls and tint them red, orange and yellow.
- Pour into each cake pan and spread into an even layer. Bake two layers at a time for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and cake springs back when lightly touched.
- Remove cakes from oven and allow to cool in pans for about 10 minutes, then turn onto cooling racks to cool completely before frosting. Or at this point, you can wrap all the cake layers tightly in plastic wrap and freeze or refrigerate until ready to assemble.
For the Blue Green and Purple Layers:
- Repeat the above steps to prepare another batch of cake. Divide into 3 bowls and tint blue, green and purple. Then bake for 25-30 minutes.
For the Vanilla Buttercream:
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the softened butters until super pale and fluffy, about 5-6 minutes.
- Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl. Add half of the powdered sugar, one cup at a time and beat on low speed after each cup until combined.
- Once combined add vanilla and heavy cream and continue to beat until combined and smooth.
- Add remaining powdered sugar one cup at a time, mixing on low speed until it’s all combined.
- Increase speed to medium-high and beat for about 5-7 minutes, or until frosting is light and fluffy.
Assembling the Piñata Cake:
- Trim the tops off all of the cake layers. Set aside the purple and red. Those layers will remain whole. Using a round cookie or biscuit cutter (I used a 3-inch round cutter), cut out the centre of one cake layer.
- Line the cut out cake on top of another cake layer and use the cutter to leave an indention showing where to cut out the next hole. Repeat with the remaining layers.
- Place the purple layer down onto your cake board or serving platter and spread a thin layer of frosting on top.
- Next, place the blue layer on top and spread on more frosting. Repeat with remaining layers — green, yellow, orange.
- Pour in your golden goodies until they reach the top. You should have some leftover for decorating. Place the red layer on top, upside down.
- Frost the entire cake with a thin layer of the vanilla buttercream. Chill the cake for 30 minutes. Tint the remaining frosting green.
- Remove cake from refrigerator and frost the entire cake with the green frosting. Use a bench scraper to smooth the sides and an offset spatula to smooth the edges and top. Place back in the refrigerator.
For the Gold Drip:
- In a heat safe bowl, microwave the heavy whipping cream and caramel or peanut butter chips together in 30 second intervals, until the cream is steaming hot. This takes me about 1 minute.
- Stir until the mixture is completely combined. Set aside to cool.
Final Decorations:
- This part is optional, so feel free to skip it. Dip a small food safe paintbrush into some edible gold paint, then flick it onto the cake to add gold splats. If you do this, cover the floor, counter and walls with something to catch the splats.
- Pour gold ganache into a disposable piping bag or a ziploc bag and snip off the tip. Drip the ganache off the edge of the cake.
- Decorate the cake with the remaining gold treats, if desired. Slice and serve!
Notes
- Buttermilk: If you don’t 8have buttermilk, you can substitute by adding 1 and ½ tablespoons of lemon juice and vinegar to 1 and ½ cups of milk. Let it sit for 5 minutes before using.
- Make ahead: (1) Cake layers can be made ahead of time and double-wrapped in plastic wrap and stored in the refrigerator or freezer. (2) Vanilla Frosting can be made ahead of time and stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for 2 months. Before using — allow frosting to come to room temperature, then re-whip in a stand mixer until the frosting is smooth and fluffy.
- Cut-Out Cake: save the cut out parts of cake and use any remaining frosting to make a mini rainbow cake!
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Nutrition Information:
Yield: 16 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 1185Total Fat: 53gSaturated Fat: 27gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 22gCholesterol: 205mgSodium: 668mgCarbohydrates: 172gFiber: 2gSugar: 132gProtein: 10g
BON APPÉTIT!
Love, Dedra
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