RECIPE: Rapunzel Pink & Purple Swirl Cake with White Chocolate Buttercream

When the world went into lockdown we knew that Isabella would be spending her birthday at home with us, instead of on holiday as originally planned. Although initially a bit sad Isabella handled the idea of having her birthday in lockdown really well and we tried our best to make it as special as possible. When it came to the birthday cake Isabella had one wish...to have a Rapunzel cake, so a Rapunzel cake is what she got. I love baking and was lucky enough to still have flour and eggs, despite the empty shelves in the supermarkets.

I really wanted to add an extra surprise, so decided to make the sponge with a colourful swirl/polka dot pattern. It's such an easy way to make a birthday cake really special and can be in any colour combination you want. This Rapunzel Cake was relatively easy to do, yet pretty effective and made Isabella squeal with excitement so I'd call that a success! If your little one loves a different princess then you could always replace Rapunzel with a different figure and make sure you hunt through your existing toy collection before ordering anything new. A quick clean and pretty much any figure will work, now onto the recipe...

What you'll need:

375g Butter, softened

275g Caster Sugar

6 Large Free-Range Eggs, at room temperature

1.5 tsp Baking Powder

375g Self Raising Flour

150ml Milk

1 tsp Vanilla Extract 

Pink and Purple Gel Food Colouring

for the white chocolate buttercream

250g Butter, softened 

400g Icing Sugar

200g White Chocolate, melted

Purple Gel Food Colouring 

for decoration

Edible Icing Flowers

Rapunzel Toy

What to do:

1) Preheat the oven to 160'C for a fan oven or 180'C. Line and butter three sandwich cake tins with non-stick baking paper. 

2) To make the sponge beat the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

3) Fold in the flour, baking powder and milk. Divide between three bowls ready for adding food colouring. 

4) Gradually add the pink food colouring to one bowl, stirring well in-between, until you have your desired colour. Repeat with the purple food colouring in the next bowl and leave one bowl of cake mixture plain. 

5) Take a spoonful at a time from each bowl and arrange in the first cake tin. You don't need to be too careful with this stage, as long as the colours don't mix too much. Repeat with the other two cake tins. 

6) Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when poked through the middle of the sponge. 

7) Turn the sponges out onto a wire rack and let cool completely.

8) To make the white chocolate buttercream melt the white chocolate carefully in the microwave, ensuring it doesn't burn. Once melted completely leave to cool slightly otherwise it will melt the butter. 

9) Beat together the icing sugar and butter in a large bowl until smooth, light and fluffy. Stir in the cooled melted white chocolate.

10) Take around 5 tbsp of the buttercream out of the bowl and leave to one side. Add purple food colouring to the rest of the buttercream, stirring well, until you have a colour you are happy with. 

11) When the cakes are completely cool you can start to assemble your Rapunzel Swirl Cake. Spread a thin layer of the buttercream in the centre of a cake board (this acts like a glue to keep the sponges in place) and place the first sponge directly on top. 

12) Spread a thin layer of the purple buttercream on top of the first sponge and top with the next sponge. Repeat with the third sponge, ensuring that each sponge is central and level. You may need to trim the sponges slightly depending on how they rose during cooking. 

13) Cover the whole cake in the purple buttercream using a palette knife and icing smoother around the edges, if you have one. Depending on how much time you have you can do a crumb coat with a thin layer of buttercream all around the outside of the cake, place in the fridge to set for a couple of hours and then add another layer on top. If that is too time consuming you can just add one thicker layer and then put in the fridge to set for a couple of hours, which is what I did here. 

14) To add the finishing touches carefully press your Rapunzel toy into the centre of the cake. 

15) Using a nozzle similar to the one below and a piping bag use the plain buttercream you kept to the side earlier to pipe on Rapunzel's long plait. You'll need to pipe in a criss-cross motion to make it look like a plait. I took this around the top of the cake, down the side and around the bottom too, but you can take the plait wherever you would like to when piping. 

16) Finish off by add a few edible icing flowers (I picked these ones up from Tesco) on to the plait and it is finished. The colourful swirl surprise adds that extra layer of magic too this cake!

Have you created a princess cake before?

Feel free to leave a comment - I love reading every single one :)

Helen x