Funfetti Snack Cake

This Funfetti Snack Cake with Raspberry American Buttercream Frosting is the perfect small celebration cake. A fluffy Vanilla Snack Cake is filled with sprinkles and is topped with a Raspberry American Buttercream and Finished with Sprinkles. You can use any sprinkles or frosting you like for this recipe to make it suitable for any occasion!

Funfetti Snack Cake with Raspberry Buttercream

Hi hi! Hope you are well. Just popping in to share this recipe for Funfetti Snack Cake with Raspberry American Buttercream Frosting. This cake is super easy, and with Valentine's just around the corner, I mixed things up a bit and traded my regular rainbow funfetti sprinkles for a pink and red mix. This Funfetti Snack cake comes together quickly, and has a nice soft texture from the yoghurt and butter in the batter. It is filled with rainbow sprinkles, and then I topped it with a super easy one bowl Raspberry American Buttercream, which is a fun twist on traditional American Buttercream! I love this one - I hope you do too! x

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What is a Snack Cake?

I had never heard of the term "Snack Cake" until I moved to the US, and now I want to use it all the time because it is the best way to describe a cake ever. A Snack Cake is generally a single layer cake, baked in a smaller pan, and finished with a simple powdered sugar, glaze or frosting situation. They are fun and easy to make, and are perfect for if you want cake but don't need a whole layer cake. I love making them because they are the perfect opportunity to swoop fluffy frosting around - of my favourite things. My friend Yossy also wrote a whole book on snack cakes, filled with all sorts of gems - you should absolutely check it out.

The great thing about this funfetti snack cake is that it is super versatile. The base is just a vanilla snack cake recipe, which I adapted from Ovenly's book. I have been making their vanilla cake for years - it was the bottom tier of my wedding cake! I scaled the recipe back, and changed the ratio a bit, but the base recipe is all theirs and is so, so good.

You can leave the sprinkles out of this for a regular vanilla snack cake recipe, or you can change up the sprinkles you use to give it a seasonal finish, like I have done here with valentine's coloured sprinkles. Add whatever frosting you like - here I have done a Raspberry American Buttercream Frosting, or leave it naked and finish with some powdered sugar. You do you here, you can't really go wrong. (You can, but you get the idea).

How to make Funfetti Snack Cake

This recipe is super easy - all you have to do is make the cake, leave to cool, and then pop the frosting on and you are good to go. Sprinkles are optional but also not really, if you know what I mean. Here's how to make it:

• Combine your wet ingredients. This cake has greek yoghurt and milk, which are combined with the vanilla.
• Whisk together your dry ingredients and have them ready to go! Nothing fancy here - flour, baking powder, and some salt.
• Cream together your butter and sugar until light and fluffy. You can use a stand mixer if you like. I just used an electric handheld mixer in a bowl to keep things easy.
• Add the eggs and mix to combine. You can scrape things down here a little if you need.
• Now for the ingredient sandwich - dry and wet ingredients go in. Dry goes in in three additions and the wet goes in in two. So it goes dry-wet-dry-wet-dry. This gives everything a chance to incorporate evenly. If you add all the wet, the mix would be too runny and get weird, if you add all the dry first, you're going to have a too thick batter which will lead to over mixing when you incorporate the dry. Alternating the ingredients reduces the chance of this happening!
• Add your sprinkles! Fold in the sprinkles of your choice. You can read about what the best sprinkles are for funfetti cake a bit further down.
• Bake! Add the mixture to your prepared pan and bake until done. Leave to cool.
• Make your frosting. This comes together quickly in one bowl, then is plopped on top of the cake and swooped on. You can add sprinkles if you like here! I always do.

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How to make Raspberry American Buttercream Frosting

I am not usually one for American Buttercream Frosting, but there is a time and a place for it - and that time and place is right here. American Buttercream is made with powdered sugar and butter, as opposed to its Swiss, Italian and German cousins which are meringue and pastry cream based. It is super quick and easy to make, and super nostalgic, so was a great choice for this easy Funfetti Snack Cake.

American Buttercream is a crusting buttercream, meaning that it will form a crust when exposed to the air from the powdered sugar in the recipe. It is relatively stable and will set up once it goes on the cake, making it easy to transport and serve.

The trick to making a good American buttercream is to make sure that it is nice and fluffy - a few tablespoons of heavy cream added to the mix before whipping it helps a lot with this. It is also important to balance the flavour. American Buttercream is very sweet, so needs to be balanced. You can do this by making sure there is enough salt in the recipe. You can also add some vanilla to round out the flavour, or add in another flavour like freeze dried raspberry powder.

To make Raspberry American Buttercream, I just added a little freeze dried raspberry powder to the frosting. This is a quick and easy way to add both colour and flavour to the recipe. You can use any freeze dried fruit powder that you like here - I just grabbed mine online.

Reverse Creaming vs Traditional Creaming in Cakes

There are a few different methods used when making cakes, specifically butter based cakes like this funfetti snack cake - the reverse cream and the 'traditional' creaming method (please note that I am just calling it the traditional method as a way to differentiate - it is not necessarily called that!)

Reverse Creaming is when the dry ingredients are combined and then room temperature butter is incorporated into the dry ingredients, then the wet ingredients are added. I use this method for my Funfetti Layer Cake and my Vanilla Layer Cake. Reverse creaming means that the butter coats the flour, which prevents gluten formation and gives a denser, tighter, but very tender crumb. It is a great method to use for layer cakes as it also bakes up fairly flat.

Traditional Creaming involves whipping the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy at the start of the cake making process. This whips air into the mixture, giving a lighter, more fluffy crumb. The cake will dome slightly more than a reverse crumb cake. You can trim this if you need, but this particular funfetti snack cake only domes a little so trimming is not required.

Both methods work great for cakes, but have their differences depending on what sort of crumb you are looking for. I originally tested this recipe with the reverse creaming method but discovered it was a little too dense for what I was looking for, so switched to a traditional creaming method instead. There are also oil based snack cakes, which are generally a stir together situation and have a looser batter which produce an even fluffier, softer crumb. Science!

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What are the best sprinkles to use for Funfetti Cake?

Not all sprinkles will work for funfetti cakes. You want to go for something that isn't going to bleed too too much in the batter. The waxy rainbow sprinkles, aka Jimmies, work great. I get them from here but any online source will work great. The 'confetti' style sprinkles also work well as they don't melt, and often come in fun shapes. Stay away from Non Pareils which will make your batter brown. Also steer clear of Silver Balls and Dragees, which lose their colouring and get hot and melt in your cake.

For this Valentine's themed Funfetti Cake, I used a mix from Sprinkle Pop Shop. It is filled with Jimmies and the confetti style sprinkles, so I knew they wouldn't bleed too badly in the cake. I also added in some heart shaped confetti sprinkles. You can really do your own thing here and make some blends of sprinkles if you like!

If you're in New Zealand, these look like they might do the trick! I haven't tried them, but they look super similar to what I was using in the US!

Frequently Asked Questions about Funfetti Snack Cake

Can this be made into a sheet cake?
Yes! I haven't tested it but the quantities will work fine - double it and bake in a 9"x13" pan. You may need to increase the time slightly.

Can this be made ahead?
Yes, you can make the cake a day ahead. I like to pop it back into the pan I baked it in and cover tightly with plastic wrap until ready to frost, or you can transfer to an airtight container.

Can I make this with regular Vanilla American Buttercream?
Yes! If you don't want to make the raspberry buttercream you can just follow the recipe as written but leave out the freeze dried raspberry powder. If you want to still make it pink, then you can add a little gel food colouring. You can also do any flavour frosting that you like - chocolate would be great here too!

How do I store Funfetti Snack Cake?
I store the cake in an airtight container. If it is super hot then pop it in the fridge, if not then it is fine at room temperature for a few days.

What can I use instead of greek yoghurt?
You can use sour cream in the place of greek yoghurt - I often use them interchangeably. Make sure you don't use regular yoghurt as it is much runnier and will affect the texture. Greek yoghurt has been strained so is a little thicker.

How do I transport Snack Cake?
The best way to transport cake, I have found, is by putting it back in the pan you baked it in. You can frost it in there if you like. Keeping it in the pan you used means it won't wiggle around too much - you can pop a piece of plastic wrap or foil (or a lid if your pan has one) over the frosting to protect it from any dust.

For more Cake recipes, check out:

• Funfetti Cake with Dark Chocolate Buttercream
• Carrot Snack Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
• Vanilla Buttermilk Cake with Swiss Meringue Buttercream
• Vanilla Malt Snack Cake

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