The most delicious, moist funfetti vanilla bean cake. This homemade funfetti cake has a yellow cake base and is made with buttermilk to keep it perfectly dense, and is packed full of Jimmy sprinkles. The confetti cake is layered with a rich chocolate American Buttercream frosting, and finished with more sprinkles. This is the perfect celebration cake, and at six inches it is great for a small group.

Funfetti Cake with Chocolate Buttercream

Hi hi! I want to start this post out by confessing that I think I’m breaking the funfetti rules with this cake. Apparently, according to the internet, funfetti cake is a place of white cake, imitation vanilla and sprinkles. I didn’t grow up with white cake (just ‘yellow’ cake which is what we call vanilla cake), so when I set out to make a funfetti cake, I wanted to keep it as delicious and flavourful as possible, so here we are - funfetti in a yellow cake. Don’t come at me, because it’s really, really good.

I used my favourite vanilla bean cake as a base here for this funfetti cake, but switched out the milk in the recipe for buttermilk, just for a tiny bit more moisture. The cake is my ultimate base recipe - you can infuse the milk to flavour it, and it makes a great sheet cake, snack cake or cupcake base. Because it’s such a great base, it also handled me throwing a whole heap of sprinkles at it like an absolute champ. The cake is super tender, packed with flavour, and is an amazing homemade funfetti cake recipe, as far as I am concerned. It uses the reverse creaming method - where you mix together all the dry then incorporate in the butter and then the wet ingredients, which is not only super easy but gives an incredibly tender crumb. It’s just the best.

What are the best sprinkles to use in Funfetti Cake?

I found that the best sprinkles to use for this funfetti cake were jimmies - if you’re in New Zealand those are the long skinny rainbow ones, the colourful version of chocolate hail. The round confetti ones would work too, just stay away from nonpareils (hundreds and thousands) because they lose their colour and it gets messy quickly.

I finished the funfetti cake off with a dark chocolate butter cream. I first discovered it on my friend Claudia’s site, by way of our other friend Thalia’s site, and it is so good! It is an american buttercream base, but is amped up with dutch cocoa and melted chocolate - imagine ganache and american buttercream had a baby. American buttercream is generally powdered sugar based, and can get a wee bit grainy, but this is fluffy and silky, and so, so good, and is perfect paired with the buttery, rich, sprinkle packed funfetti cake.

A few wee tips for making this Funfetti Cake

I use Fat Daddio’s pans and they are the best I’ve ever tried. I have three 6” and three 8” and they are just so, so good. I really recommend investing in three of each size if you can - it removes the need to halve your layers etc, which can be a huge pain.
I like making the cake ahead of time a wee bit if I can just to allow it to cool completely. The day before is great. You can wrap it and store at room temperature overnight, just make sure it is completely cool. Alternatively I like to freeze it, which makes the stacking process nice and easy to do with a cold cake. If you are making the layers ahead of time, wrap them well in plastic then freeze until you are using. I assemble straight from frozen usually - just make sure to give yourself enough time to let the layers defrost!
I left this pretty rustic around the edges and just added in some sprinkles, but if you like there is enough frosting in the recipe to finish with a border of piping if you liked.
If you want an 8” cake, just double the quantities of the cake and it will be the perfect size. You can probably get away with a 1.5x or 1.75x the buttercream quantity.
When you are dividing your batter between the pans, do it by weight. I like to know the weight of my mixing bowl before I start (write it somewhere in your kitchen), so I can just weigh the bowl filled with batter, and then subtract the bowl weight to get the weight of the batter. You can then work out how much batter goes in each pan. It’s quick and easy and means you get really even layers.
I like to use a cookie scoop to add the buttercream between the layers. that way you can easily add the same quantity between. Otherwise you can just eyeball it and plop the buttercream on!

For more cake recipes, check out these:

Funfetti Cake with Dark Chocolate Buttercream

Author: Erin
Prep Time: 60
Cook Time: 40
Total Time: 1 hour 40 minutes
Yield: One 6" layer cake - serves 8 1x

Description

Scale

Ingredients

Funfetti Cake

2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 egg yolk, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
200g buttermilk, at room temperature
60g full fat greek yoghurt
300g all-purpose flour
225g sugar
1 3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
175g unsalted butter, at room temperature
115g rainbow Jimmy sprinkles

Dark Chocolate Buttercream

225g 60% or higher chocolate, roughly chopped
290g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 tsp salt
225g powdered sugar, sifted
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
90g dutch process cocoa, sifted
2-3 Tbsp heavy cream, as needed

Instructions

CAKE LAYERS

Preheat the oven to 350°f / 180°c. Grease three 6” cake pans, and line with parchment paper on the bottom.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, egg yolk, vanilla, buttermilk, and yoghurt.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Mix briefly to combine.
With the mixer on low, add the butter a cube at a time, until fully incorporated and the mixture looks like sand.
Add half of the wet ingredients into the mixer. Mix until just combined, then add the second half of the wet ingredients. Mix on medium speed until just combined. Add in the sprinkles and mix to combine.Remove the bowl from the mixer and give a few folds with a rubber spatula to ensure that no dry ingredients remain.
Divide the batter between your three cake tins (I prefer to do this by weight - see notes). Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the cakes are springy to the touch, and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
Remove from the oven and cool for 15 minutes in their pans, then turn onto a wire rack and allow to cool completely.

DARK CHOCOLATE BUTTERCREAM

Melt the dark chocolate in 15 second increments in the microwave, stirring well between each until melted. Set aside to cool completely.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on high speed until light and fluffy, approx. 4 minutes. Add the salt, powdered sugar, vanilla bean paste, and cocoa, and mix until smooth, scraping down the sides once or twice.
Add the melted chocolate and mix well until silky. If needed, add cream 1 tbsp at a time to get the frosting to a nice smooth, fluffy consistency.

ASSEMBLY

Level off the cake layers. Secure one of the layers of cake to a cake turntable, cake stand or cake board using a little buttercream. Add about half a cup of buttercream onto the first layer of cake (I used a cookie scoop that had a 2 Tbsp volume and added 3 scoops), and smooth using an offset spatula.
Place the second layer of cake onto the first, pressing very lightly to secure, and sealing the joins with a thin layer of buttercream. Add more buttercream, smooth down, then top with the third layer of cake - I like to put this one upside down to ensure that the top of the cake is flat.
Crumb coat the cake - to do this, apply a thin layer of buttercream over the surface of the cake, and smooth with a bench scraper or icing smoother. Refrigerate the cake for 15-20 minutes, until the crumb coat has set. Press a piece of plastic wrap over the surface of the buttercream while you are chilling down the cake.
If you have started with a chilled or frozen cake, or the buttercream seems to be not too sloppy, you can skip the chilling down of the crumb coat if you like, or reduce the time to 5 mins. If you have an empty freezer you can also throw it in the freezer for 5 minutes to help set it!
Add a second layer of buttercream to the cake - I like to make this one thicker and smooth down the edges.
Smooth the buttercream on the outside of the cake using a bench scraper, scraping down between passes. Fill in any gaps, and add additional buttercream where needed. Continue until you are happy with the finish.
Chill the cake until you are ready to serve. Bring to room temperature for about an hour before serving.

Notes

Dark Chocolate buttercream from Butter and Brioche via The Brick Kitchen

Keywords: Funfetti Cake, Vanilla Bean Cake, Buttermilk Cake, Yellow Funfetti Cake, Funfetti cake with Chocolate Buttercream, American Buttercream