Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray six 6-inch round cake pans with nonstick spray and line the inside bottoms with parchment paper to prevent the cake from sticking. Set aside.
In a large bowl, stir the flour, granulated sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together. Stir well to mix. Set aside.
2½ cups all-purpose flour, 1½ cups granulated sugar, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon baking powder, ½ teaspoon kosher salt
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the buttermilk, slightly melted butter, eggs, and vanilla extract together on low until mixed. This mixture will look a bit chunky (small butter chunks) but that’s okay.
1½ cups buttermilk, ½ cup unsalted butter, 3 large eggs, 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and beat on low just until combined. Do not overmix. Mix just until you no longer see dry ingredients. Be sure to use a spatula to mix dry ingredients from side and bottom of bowl into the rest of the mixture. This mixture will still look chunky and that’s perfect because we still have to mix in the different colors. It’s important not to overmix this or you’ll end up with lots of crater holes in your cakes.
Separate cake batter equally into 6 bowls. This works out to be around 210 grams of batter per bowl.
Color one bowl of cake batter red, one orange, one yellow, one green, one blue and one purple. Again, be careful not to overmix. Stir just until the color is mixed in well.
Gel food coloring
Pour cake batter into prepared pans. One color cake batter per cake pan.
Bake in the preheated oven for 20-22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cakes comes out clean.
Let cakes cool in pans for 15 minutes before removing cakes from pans.
Wrap cakes in food-safe plastic wrap (each cake wrapped separately so they don’t stick together) and place cakes in fridge for at least one hour (could also be left overnight if wrapped tightly in food-safe plastic wrap so they don’t dry out).