Italian Rainbow Cookie Cake

This website uses affiliate links which may earn commission for purchases made at no additional cost to you.

This Italian Rainbow Cookie Cake is made with colorful layers of moist almond cake, raspberry jam and a chocolate ganache frosting.

If you’ve been lucky enough to have an Italian rainbow cookie in NYC, then you know how incredibly delicious they are. Made with dense, cakey, almond cookie layers, raspberry jam and a velvety chocolate coating that are sliced into squares and sold in delis, rainbow cookies are popular for a reason: they’re delicious. And so is this cake-sized version perfect for serving up as your next dessert centerpiece.

This cake is one of our favorite things we’ve made this year, which is saying a lot because we’ve made a whole bunch of hits this year (looking at you, Nutella brownies). This inventive cake takes all the flavors of a classic Italian rainbow cookie and puts them into a colorful, multi-layer cake bursting with subtle vanilla almond flavor, a subtle fruitiness from the raspberry jam and sealed together with a decadent chocolate ganache. The result is a stunning layer cake with a beautiful dense, cake-y texture that tastes like a cross between a cookie and a cake.

What ingredients do you need to make this cake

You will need a fair amount of ingredients and time to bring this cake together, but it’s so worth it for the delicious final product. You’ll need all the essentials (flour, butter, sugar, vanilla etc.), plus some bakery style almond filling, raspberry jam and the goodies to whip up a homemade chocolate ganache frosting. It’s a lot–I GET IT. But it’s also delicious and sometimes good things take time and effort, so buck up baby! You got this.

Here’s your shopping list:

Unsalted butter
Oil
Granulated sugar
Almond filling (we used Solo!)
Eggs
Milk
Vanilla extract
Almond extract
All-purpose flour
Baking powder
Salt
Red + green gel food coloring
Seedless raspberry jam
Bittersweet chocolate
Heavy cream

This rainbow cookie cake requires a few moving parts and assembly so it can be helpful to break it up to make things easier. You’ll need to make 1 cake batter, split into 3 different colors, then baked into 6 cake layers, sandwiched together with raspberry jam and covered in ganache. So…it can be nice to split up the work 🙂

Bake the cake layers ahead of time and freeze them: We love to freeze cake layers ahead of time because it helps you break up the work and it makes the cake way easier to assemble. If you do freeze the cake layer you can sandwich them together with the jam while they’re still frozen, but let the layers thaw out completely before frosting with the chocolate ganache or the ganache will get cold and seize!
If you’re scared to cut your cakes, bake them in 6 different pans: If you don’t want to deal with cutting your cakes in half, you can bake 6 cake layers instead. If you only have 3 8-inch cake pans like we do, you can divide the batter up into 6 bowls and then just bake them off in as many batches as you need in the oven. Keep in mind the thinner cakes will take less time to bake–about 18 minutes!
Be precise about assembling your cake: The chocolate ganache frosting is a thin coating so you’ll want to make sure the cake is even and level because you won’t be able to hide the imperfections!

Happy baking, my friends!!

XXX

Author: Sofi | Broma Bakery
Prep Time: 1 hour and 30 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Total Time: 3 hours
Yield: 18 servings
Category: dessert
Method: oven
Cuisine: american

Units:

Ingredients

For the rainbow cake

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup oil
1 cup granulated sugar
12.5 ounces almond filling (we used Solo!)
5 large eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup milk
2–3 teaspoons red gel food coloring
2–3 teaspoons green gel food coloring
1 1/4 cups seedless raspberry jam

For the ganache

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
2/3 cup heavy cream

Instructions

First, make the cake. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line the bottom of three 8-inch round cake pans with parchment paper and grease the sides with cooking spray. Set aside.
In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the butter, oil, and granulated sugar on medium speed until the mixture is light, fluffy and turns a very pale yellow color, about 2 minutes.
Use a silicone spatula to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, then add the almond filling, eggs, almond extract and vanilla. Beat on medium-high speed until the mixture is light and fluffy, about 2 minutes, scraping down the bowl as needed.
In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. With the mixer on low speed, alternate adding in the dry ingredients and the milk in 3 additions (you’ll add half the dry, then all of the wet, then the other half of the dry). It’s okay if the batter still has a few lumps in it–you don’t want to overmix.
Divide the batter evenly into 3 medium size bowls. Add the red food coloring to one of the bowls, the green food coloring to one of the bowls and leave the third bowl uncolored. Stir the food coloring in to combine.
Transfer to the red, green and white cake batters to the three prepared pans and bake until the cakes has risen, the tops springs back to the touch, and a butter knife inserted in the center of each cake comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Place the cake pans on a cooling rack and allow them to cool slightly before removing from the pan to cool completely, about 30 minutes.
While the cakes are cooling, make your ganache. Finely chop the chocolate and place in a large mixing bowl. In a separate, microwave safe bowl microwave the heavy cream until scalding. Pour the cream over the chopped chocolate and allow to sit for 3 minutes. Use a rubber spatula to fold the chocolate and cream together until the chocolate is fully melty and the mixture forms a glossy ganache. If the chocolate is not fully melted, place in the microwave for 10 seconds to warm it up. Cover and place in the fridge to chill for just about 30 minutes- you want the mixture to become firm enough that it holds its shape when you drag a spoon into it, but not so firm that it becomes solid.
Once the ganache is chilled, you can begin to assemble the cake. Use a large serrated knife to carefully cut each cake layer into two equal halves. You should now have 2 red layers, 2 green layers and 2 white layers.
Place one red layer onto a serving plate and top with 1/4 cup the raspberry jam, using an offset spatula to spread the jam evenly to the edges. Alternate the cake layers red, white, green, spreading 1/4 cup of jam between each layer.
Use a large offset spatula to cover the whole outside of the cake in chocolate ganache. Allow the ganache to further set for at least 30 minutes before slicing and serving!

Best Dinner Recipies