Preheat oven to 175C. line two 19 x 19 cm square pan with baking paper. If you are doing only the ribbon cake and not the whole cake with brownie, then use one pan to bake the cake.
In a cake mixer (stand or hand held mixer)Place the soften butter and sugar in the mixing bowl and mix well on high speed until creamy
Add vanilla, almond essence, oil and mix well
Add in the eggs one by one until fully incorporated
Reduce the speed and fold in the sifted flour and baking powder
Finally, add milk and mix until fully incorporated
Divide the batter into two equal parts, add a dollop of pink colouring to one part and green colouring to the other part and mix well separately
Add in both batters to the prepared lined trays and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes
Take it out of the cake pans and let it cool on a wire rack, while it is hot, you can simply peel off the top brown layer of the cake ( note you can also carve it with a knife, but it easily peels off) The brown layer will be different from oven to oven, if there is no brown layer then leave the cake as it is.