Watercolour Cake

Preheat oven to 160°C (fan-forced). Spray 3 x 20cm round cake pans with oil and line bases with baking paper.

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and 3/4 tsp salt in a large bowl and whisk to combine. In a medium bowl whisk cream, vanilla and eggs. Add to dry ingredients. Whisk until just combined.

Divide mixture among pans and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into centres comes out clean. Cool cakes in pans for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Trim tops to level cakes and halve horizontally to make six layers.

To make the vanilla buttercream, beat butter and vanilla with an electric mixer for 3-5 minutes or until pale and creamy. Scrape side of bowl. Add icing sugar and milk, and beat for a further 5 minutes or until fluffy. Spread 2/3 cup icing over each cake layer and stack. Spread 1 cup icing over side of cake. Chill for 20 minutes.

Divide remaining icing into 4 small bowls. Leaving 1 bowl uncoloured, add a few drops of food colouring to 3 bowls of icing to make pastel purple (red and blue colouring), pastel pink (red colouring) and pastel teal (blue and green colouring). Transfer coloured and uncoloured icing to piping bags (or snaplock bags with the corners snipped).

Pipe white icing dabs onto bottom portion of cake first. Use a spoon to spread dabs like a paint stroke. Refrigerate cake for 30 minutes or until icing is firm. Repeat with remaining colours to cover rest of cake. Pat sprinkles onto top and sides of cake to finish.