Funfetti Cake from Scratch (& A Very Merry Unbirthday)

A light and fluffy, made from scratch  funfetti cake (sometimes also called confetti cake)!  This soft, snow-white cake is speckled with brightly colored sprinkles and iced with a sweet buttercream frosting — it’s the perfect homemade birthday cake!

If this funfetti cake looks familiar, you caught me, I shared it exactly one year ago in celebration of the first unofficial birthday of Sugar Spun Run.

Well, it’s been two years now since I almost completely deleted this whole website.  Instead, I dug in full-force and have spent almost every spare second of my time developing and photographing (and now videoing) recipes to share with you.

As a brief review before we get to this favorite layered funfetti cake of mine, I originally bought the name, Sugar Spun Run, in 2012 and published a few posts super casually, photographed via iPhone-only, and focused on… whatever caught my attention that particular day.  It was maintained sporadically, sloppily, and definitely without intention.

So in April of 2015 when I got the bill to renew my website, I almost canceled everything.  I was literally one button-click away from doing so… and then decided maybe I’d give it one more shot.

Well, here we are, nearly 250 recipes later with a bright cheerful funfetti cake to show for it.

It’s now been two years of late, powdered-sugar filled nights, of re-making recipes over and over again (often only to decide that they really were just right the first time), of website code-induced headaches, and of desperately attempting to solve the Rubik’s cube that is my camera.  Well over 200 lbs of butter have made their way through my kitchen, and my KitchenAid has become my near-constant companion.

And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

So, while today can’t rightly be called my blog’s “birthday”, I wanted to commemorate this two year anniversary anyway.  Today I’m celebrating Sugar Spun Run’s Unbirthday, and slicing up this confetti-colored, sprinkle stuffed, 3-layer, from-scratch Funfetti cake just for the occasion.  So let’s get down to it.

How do you make Funfetti cake?

Funfetti cake is typically a fluffy white cake with sprinkles mixed into the batter.

Light and fluffy, this cake is made with a combination of butter (for flavor) and oil (for texture and moisture).  Developing this recipe took weeks, and the ingredients and their ratios were calculated very precisely and carefully.

For maximum fluffy softness, this recipe calls for plenty of egg whites (no egg yolks).  You’ll whip these separately with an electric hand mixer until they reach stiff peaks (that just means that when you lift a whisk straight out of the whites, the peaks stay and don’t recede back into themselves) and then fold them with a spatula into the cake batter.  This is easy to do– it takes only about 5 minutes– and is critical for a light and fluffy white cake (don’t get me started on yellow funfetti cakes — there should be no such thing).

I used a buttercream that I flavored with a new emulsion that I found at my local cake shop (see notes in recipe), which accented the frosting with notes of citrus and almond.  This kept the buttercream from being overbearingly sweet, but didn’t go over as well with Zach, who loathes lemon.

Vanilla extract (or any other that you prefer) can also be used, of course, and I included notes in the recipe.

Today, I’m cutting up this carefully-crafted funfetti cake into thick slices in an Unbirthday celebration, and I’m so glad that you are here to join me.

Thank you so much for following along, for taking the time to read my posts (or just look at the pictures, that’s OK too), comment, e-mail, and follow me on social media (your support as I tackle video on Facebook has been so helpful).

This space would be nothing without you coming back day after day, and I know I wouldn’t have made it this far without so many kind, encouraging comments (when I get a comment telling me that you tried a recipe and loved it, it makes my whole day).

Sugar Spun Run is here to stay.

Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it.  The time will pass anyway. –Earl Nightingale

Funfetti Cake from Scratch (and an UnBirthday)

A fluffy white funfetti cake made from completely scratch.  Please note that if you do not want a three layer cake, you can divide the batter into just two pans and use the rest to make cupcakes!

4.85 from 283 votes

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Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Prep Time: 50 minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Servings: 14 slices

Calories: 1136kcal

Author: Sam Merritt

Ingredients

• ▢ 9 Tablespoons unsalted butter softened
• ▢ 3 cups granulated sugar (600g)
• ▢ 1 cup canola oil vegetable oil would also work (236ml)
• ▢ 4 teaspoons vanilla extract
• ▢ 4 cups+ 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour (all of the flour goes into the cake batter, you will also need additional flour for preparing the cake pan) (516g)
• ▢ 4 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• ▢ 1 ½ teaspoons salt
• ▢ 1 ½ cup milk (355ml)
• ▢ 9 egg whites room temperature preferred
• ▢ ½ cup sprinkles* (80g)

Buttercream

• ▢ 1 lb unsalted butter softened to room temperature (453g)
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon salt
• ▢ 6 cups powdered sugar (750g)
• ▢ 6 Tbsp heavy cream
• ▢ 2 teaspoons LorAnn Princess emulsion or vanilla extract

Recommended Equipment

• ▢
  Mixing bowls

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Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350F (175C) and prepare 3 8-inch round cake pans by generously greasing and flouring. Be sure to shake out excess flour.
• In stand mixer, beat butter on medium-low speed until creamy.
• Add sugar and oil and beat until all ingredients are well-combined and creamy.
• Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl and then stir in your vanilla.
• In separate bowl, whisk together your flour, baking powder, and salt.
• Measure out your milk.
• With mixer on medium speed, gradually alternate between adding the flour mixture and the milk to the butter mixture, starting and ending with the flour mixture. Stir until each one is almost completely combined before adding the next.
• Pause occasionally to scrape down sides and bottom of bowl.
• In separate bowl, combine your egg whites and, with a hand-mixer on high-speed, beat until stiff peaks form.
• Using a spatula, gently fold your egg whites and sprinkles into your batter. Take care to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl so that ingredients are well-combined, and take care not to over-mix.
• Evenly divide cake batter into prepared pans.
• Bake on 350F (175C) for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of each cake layer comes out clean or with few crumbs (should not be wet). For best results, rotate your cake pans halfway through baking to ensure even baking.
• Cakes will be a light golden brown when done baking.
• Remove cakes from oven and allow to cool for 15 minutes. Run a butterknife around the inside rim of each pan and invert each onto a cooling rack.
• Allow to cool completely before frosting.

Frosting

• I used this technique from I Am Baker to frost my cake. If you intend to use this technique as well it requires a lot of icing for the top and I recommend increasing this recipe by 50%. If you are just doing a plain covering that will not be needed.
• In stand mixer, beat butter on medium-speed until creamy.
• Add salt and beat again for about 20 seconds.
• Gradually, about 1 cup at a time, add powdered sugar, waiting until each cup is completely mixed before adding the next cup.
• Tbsp at a time, add the heavy cream on medium-high speed, waiting until each addition is well-combined before adding the next 2 Tbsp.
• Add flavoring (vanilla extract or emulsion). and stir on medium-high for 30 seconds.
• Transfer one layer of your cooled cake to serving platter. Use frosting to ice the top. Add the next layer, ice the top of that. Add your third layer on top and ice the top, and then do a thin "crumb coating" around the entire cake.
• Transfer to freezer for 10-15 minutes, then remove and apply a clean, thick coat of frosting around the entire cake.

Notes

*Use sprinkles/jimmies or round sequin "quin" sprinkles, do NOT use nonpareils or they may bleed through your batter and ruin the coloring of your cake.

This cake may also be made in three 9" pans, just decrease the baking time. Start checking the cakes for doneness at 25 minutes.

Nutrition

Serving: 1slice | Calories: 1136kcal | Carbohydrates: 155g | Protein: 11g | Fat: 54g | Saturated Fat: 25g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 100mg | Sodium: 345mg | Potassium: 290mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 100g | Vitamin A: 1171IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 112mg | Iron: 3mg

Tried this recipe? Show me on Instagram!Mention @SugarSpun_Sam or tag #sugarspunrun!

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Recipe originally published 4/13/16 — text updated 4/13/17