Rainbow Italian Cookie Cake

Have you ever went to your local bakery and had one of those "rainbow" cookies, you know the ones that are topped with chocolate and have jelly layers in the middle of the three colors? Of course you have. Well for me it was my favorite cookie to eat, but I always wondered what gave it that amazing flavor. So I did a little research and looked at a couple of different recipes online and I guess you can say concocted my own recipe. Like I said I couldnt have done this with out the many wonderful recipes that people have posted online so Id like to take the time to thank them for helping me create my own. So hear it is for all of you to try. Enjoy!

So the Ingredients you will need are:   

3 sticks butter (make sure they are soft enough to cream together with the sugar)

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

6 large eggs

12.5 ounces (one can) of almond paste

          1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 tablespoon pure almond extract 

3 cups all-purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking powder 

10-15 drops of: red, green and yellow food coloring 

1/4-1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam  

1/4-1/2 cup apricot preserves


1. In an electric mixer fit with a paddle cream together the butter and sugar until they are nice and fluffy, this should take anywhere from 3-5 minutes. Then add the eggs and continue to beat for about another 3 minutes.  When the eggs are all blended with the butter and sugar add in the full can of almond paste, vanilla extract and your almond extract. Beat everything together until well blended.  

2. While everything in blending get a separate bowl and sift together the flour and baking powder. If you dont have a sifter just add them into a bowl and whisk them its the same thing. Then after you have sifter that slowly (with caution because the batter will spit the flour back at you) add the dry ingredients to the batter.

3. After everything in mixed together, just like in my cupcake post, you are going to take three bowls out and divide the batter evenly and drop your food coloring into the bowls and mix the color with the batter. You should end up with one bowl of a red/ pink batter, one bowl of green batter, and one yellow batter.

4. After that you need to take the 3 mixtures and pour them into 3 individual pans. This is where you come in. You have to choose what type of pan you want. If you are making a cake I would take 3 9" pans but if you are trying to make the cookies I would take 3 square or rectangle pans and use those. Make sure when you pour the batter into the pans you smooth out the top and then just slide the pans into a oven at 350 degrees for about 25-35 minutes. Just until you can stick a tooth pick into the center and it comes out dry. When the cakes are done, take them out of the oven and allow them to cool for about 5 minutes before you try to remove them to the cooling rack.

5. While the cake is cooling, prepare the ganache. Now ganache is real simple. Just take 1 cup of heavy cream and bring it to a soft boil. Once you see little bubbles forming around the edge take it off the heat and pour the cream into a separate bowl over 12 ounces of semi sweet chocolate. Stir the cream and chocolate together until you get a smooth melted chocolate "syrup" looking mixture in your bowl. Let it cool for a little.

6. As the ganache is cooling you can start layering the cake. Start with the pink/ red layer and then spread the raspberry jam until it reaches the edges of the cake. Then layer the yellow cake on top of that. Spread this with the apricot preserves. Then top it all of with the final green layer.

7.  To put the ganache on the cake I like to just put the cake on a cooling rack and pour the ganache on top and let it slide onto the cake. Then I take a rubber spatula and smooth out the sides. allow the ganache to cool and set for about an hour and a half. Then decorate as you would like.

P.S this time I jut did a plain simple decoration with a fondant ball in the center and I took strips of fondant and wrapped them around tooth picks and let them harden and you get a nice fondant ribbon.