Joan’s Cake | Rainbow Cake Recipe using Whipped Cream Frosting

Today’s Joan’s Cake Rainbow Cake recipe is going to be a story related cake. For those who have not heard of this cake, let me enlighten you. There is a food based movie called Oggarane (Kannada), Un Samayal Arayil (Tamil), Ulavacharu Biryani (Telugu) remake of Malayalam movie Salt N’ Pepper. A scene in that movie says “The hero gives the recipe for a Juans/Joans rainbow cake to her lover (Heroine) and they make it in their different homes, yet together”. The story behind this cake is quite interesting. It’s about Juan, a French lady who awaits the return of her love who is fighting in the second world war, far away from home. On the first day of her wait she bakes a delicious strawberry cake for him. However he does not return that day. On the second day she bakes a pista cake, only to be disappointed again. She joined the cakes together with some whipped cream. Her wait continued into the third day when she made an orange cake. He still did not come. She went to bed disappointed that night. Next morning her love arrived bearing a gift of good chocolates for his lady. She combined all the cakes she baked with cream. She then melted the chocolate and poured it over the cake, and then served it to her loved one. They ate it together in celebration of his return and their never ending love. This rainbow cake is off to Swathi’s Baking Partners challenge and I thank Julie for the recipe suggestion.

Ingredients for Strawberry Cake

All Purpose Flour  or Cake Flour – 1 Cup (For making your own cake flour, 1 cup all purpose flour (-) minus 2 Tbsp APF + 2 tablespoon of cornstarch or cornflour)
Baking powder – 2 tsp
* Thick Strawberry Puree – 1/3 Cup
Yogurt – 1/4 Cup or (more yogurt or strawberry puree for batter consistency)
Sugar 2 tbsp + 1/2 cup
Whole Egg 1 + 1 egg white ,at room temperature
Unsalted butter 4 -5 Tbsp (57gms)
Strawberry extract or Vanilla Extract – 1tsp
Salt – 1/8tsp or A Pinch
Red Food Color – 2 drops

* You may need 225grams of fresh strawberries approximately to make your puree and Refer this link to check how to make strawberry puree from scratch.

For Pistachio Cake

All Purpose flour or Cake Flour – 1 Cup
Baking powder – 1 and 1/2 tsp
Pistachios – 1/2 cup (when soaked and grind with little water the quantity will be 1/2 Cup)
Granulated Sugar – 1/2 Cup
Thick Yogurt – 2-3 Tbsp or more for batter consistency
Egg – 1 whole Number + 1 egg white
Unsalted butter  4 Tbsp (57gms)
Pistachio extract or Vanilla Extract – 1 tsp
Salt – 1/8tsp or A Pinch
Green Food Color – 2 drops

Orange Cake

All Purpose Flour or Cake Flour – 1 Cup
Orange Juice Fresh – 1/3 Cup
Orange Rind – 1tsp
Baking powder – 2 tsp
Unsalted butter – 4-5 Tbsp (You can increase 2 more tbsps of butter)
Granulated Sugar – 1/2 Cup
Egg – 1 Number (whole) + 1 egg white
Thick Yogurt – 1/4 Cup (or more to attain cake batter consistency)
Orange extract – 1/2 tsp (optional)
Salt – 1/8tsp or A Pinch
Orange Food Color – 2 drops

You can skip yogurt mentioned below in all the three cake recipes and increase 2 Tbsp butter!!

For Icing/Frosting
Whipping Cream or Heavy Cream, Cold – 400-600 ml
Icing sugar/Confectioners sugar – 1/2 Cup
Fresh Fruits if any
You can add 2tsp of gelatin (soaked in cold water and bloomed) to make the cream stable but i didn’t use
I used 6″ cake pan to make all the three cakes.
Recipe adapted from here

Method

FOR STRAWBERRY CAKE

• Preheat oven to 350°F butter your cake pan or line with a parchment paper.Keep aside.
• Sift the flour and baking powder twice or thrice,keep aside.
• Using a hand blender,beat the butter and sugar until creamy.Add the egg and mix well.
• Add the flour mixture little by little along with strawberries puree and then Yogurt, mix until combined.
• Finally add 2 drops of red food color and mix until combined.
• Pour this in the prepared pan and spread evenly (Stepwise Pic 4 below).
• Bake for 30-35 minutes or until tooth pick inserted comes out clean.
• Cool on wire rack and cool completely (Pic 5).

FOR PISTACHIOs CAKE

• Preheat oven to 350°F butter your cake pan or line with a parchment paper.Keep aside.
• Sift the flour and baking powder twice or thrice,keep aside.
• Soak the pistachios in milk or water for two hours, drain(Pic 1) and then using a blender puree to a smooth paste.
• While blending you can use the same milk/water if needed (Pic 2).
• Using a hand blender,beat the butter and sugar until creamy.Add the egg and mix well.
• Add the flour mixture little by little along with pistachio puree and then Yogurt, mix until combined (Pic 3).
• Finally add 2 drops of green food color and mix until combined (Pic 3).
• Pour this in the prepared pan and spread evenly (Pic 4), refer notes.
• Bake for 30-35  minutes or until tooth pick inserted comes out clean.
• Cool on wire rack and cool completely (Pic 5).

FOR ORANGE CAKE

• Preheat oven to 350°F butter your cake pan or line with a parchment paper, keep aside.
• Sift the flour and baking powder twice or thrice,keep aside.Add the grated orange rind.
• Cut the oranges in half and then extract the juice, strain the juice completely.
• Using a hand blender,beat the butter and sugar until creamy.
• Add the egg,orange extract(if using) and mix well.
• Add the flour mixture little by little along with orange juice and then yogurt, food color,mix until combined.
• Finally add 2 drops of orange food color and mix until combined.
• Pour this in the prepared pan and spread evenly.
• Bake for 30-35  minutes or until tooth pick inserted comes out clean.
• Cool on wire rack and cool completely.

• For whipped cream frosting, beat the cream in a grease free bowl/glass bowl with a hand mixer by adding little by little icing sugar.
• Add to combine until stiff peaks form (takes about 4-5 mins Pic 2 below), refrigerate until use.
• Once you attain soft peaks check for a while(Pic 1), over beating will cause the butter to separate from the cream, so watch carefully, when you til the bowl he cream should not move that’s the right consistency(Pic 2)..
• Trim the cakes to the same size so that it looks of equal size.
• Here each cake height 1″ tall and trim the top most crust and make it even (Pic 6 in stepwise pictures above).
• Add a dollop of whipped cream on the cake base, place the Orange cake upside down.
• Then add another dollop of whipped cream level it(Pic 3), place pistachio cake upside down.
• Add a dollop of whipped cream and spread it (Pic 4)
• Then last place the strawberry cake, upside down.

• Add the whipped cream crumb frosting and spread evenly.
• Refrigerate for 1 hour to set.
• After one hour, add more whipped cream(Pic 5) and spread evenly.
• Decorate with free designs as per your choice (Pic 6).
• Refrigerate another 2 hours,add chocolate shavings and fresh sliced strawberries.
• Serve sliced  or refrigerate and enjoy!!!

Notes

Here the orange cake batter became bit runny in my first try, so later i adapted the recipe as given here and tried some cupcakes and i was perfect. Becoz of that I arranged the orange cake at the bottom but you can first layer the strawberry and orange cake at last as per the Juan’s story. Also if desired melt some choc chips or chocolates with heavy cream in microwave and pour over the frosted cake and cakes looks as much close to the film story 🙂