A soft, fluffy vanilla funfetti cake studded with rainbow sprinkles and topped with a rich vanilla buttercream.
Every baker should be equipped with several basic recipes including chocolate chip cookie recipe [1], a chocolate cake recipe [2] and of course, a vanilla cake recipe. Today I’m sharing my go-to vanilla cake recipe with you. It’s easy to throw together, and easy to customize. Want to mix in some chocolate chips? Go ahead. Want to use brown sugar instead of granulated and toss in some cinnamon and nutmeg? Perfect.
Because I celebrated my birthday in November, I wanted to transform the basic vanilla cake recipe into something a little more festive by folding in some rainbow-colored sprinkles to create a funfetti cake infused with vanilla. I like to combine an assortment of Wilton’s sprinkles [3] (not non-pareils) because I find that they don’t bleed as much as sugar strands (I unsuccessfully used Dr. Oetker’s sprinkles, and the color washed off resulting a weird, green-colored cake. No rainbow).
That simply won’t do for this funetti cake recipe with vanilla buttercream frosting.
To decorate the cake, I used a thick, creamy vanilla frosting. I’ll admit, this resulted in cake on the sweeter side of the cake spectrum. But you really can’t expect anything less from a vanilla buttercream paired with a confetti cake. For a more sublime, less sweet cake, you could pair it with the chocolate buttercream from this [2] recipe or the mocha fudge frosting from this [4] recipe. You could also reduce the sugar listing by as much as 1/2 cup. But if you are looking for a classic birthday cake, follow the recipe as is, and your result will be a soft, fluffy, rainbow-studded cake coated in a velvety vanilla frosting.
It’s a perfect cake for a younger audience, but it most likely isn’t the most optimal dessert for a slightly sophisticated, aged palette- in which case you may not be looking for a funfetti recipe. For those cake connoisseurs, go for a traditional vanilla cake sans sprinkles or vanilla buttercream, and pair with either of the chocolate frostings listed above, or maybe even fold in some berries for a ‘natural’ funfetti cake.
But for now, let’s go full rainbow with this funfetti cake recipe!
Looking for more cake recipes?
URLs in this post:
[1] chocolate chip cookie recipe: https://www.hotchocolatehits.com/2015/05/salted-chocolate-chip-cookies.html
[2] chocolate cake recipe: https://www.hotchocolatehits.com/2014/06/the-best-chocolate-cake-recipe.html
[3] sprinkles: http://amzn.to/2gS9k9T
[4] this: https://www.hotchocolatehits.com/2015/11/mocha-pumpkin-cake-recipe.html
[5] Print Recipe: https://hotchocolatehits.com/wprm_print/23401
[6] Pin Recipe: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/bookmarklet/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fhotchocolatehits.com%2F2016%2F12%2Ffunfetti-cake-vanilla-buttercream-frosting.html%2F&media=https%3A%2F%2Fhotchocolatehits.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F12%2FScreenshot-2023-08-31-at-09.37.15.png&description=Funfetti+Cake+with+Vanilla+Frosting&is_video=false
[7] Rate Recipe: #commentform
[8] The Big Book of Cakes: http://amzn.to/2gzoobB
[9] Vanilla pound cake with lemon glaze: https://hotchocolatehits.com/2021/10/vanilla-pound-cake-with-lemon-glaze-an-exciting-announcement.html/
[10] Tres Leches cake : https://hotchocolatehits.com/2020/06/tres-leches-cake-recipe.html/
[11] Pineapple upside-down cake: https://hotchocolatehits.com/2018/07/pineapple-upside-cake.html/