Confetti Cake – moist and fluffy vanilla cake layers, lots of sprinkles and a whipped vanilla buttercream.
Best Birthday Cake
I’m not sure there’s anything more classic or more nostalgic than a classic Confetti Cake. Since the day Pillsbury came out with their hugely popular Funfetti Cake back in the 1950’s, it’s been a favorite for generations! What’s not to love? Vanilla cake, vanilla buttercream and lots of sprinkles!
Like many of you, I grew up on the boxed version of this cake. I loved it back then, but a few years ago came up with my own recipe. I originally posted it as my Fourth of July Funfetti Cake, and grew to love it even more!
In this first version of my Confetti Cake, I used my Classic White Cake and Vanilla Buttercream as the base. It’s super light and fluffy, and reminds me of my childhood. However, I’ve always felt like it could be better. As I’ve remade this cake over the years, I just kept thinking, I need to try this one again.
Confetti Cake
As I’ve been working on my cookbook (to be released later this year), I made a few changes to this recipe to make it even more memorable and delicious. In this updated Confetti Cake recipe, the cake is more of a vanilla cake than a white cake. It’s a little more moist, in my opinion, than my original version. And it also has a slightly stronger vanilla flavor to it as well.
The texture and flavor in this cake is so delicious and I’m so excited for you to try it!
CAKE MAKING TIPS
Don’t forget to follow my go-to tips for getting your cakes to rise and bake well:
- Preheat your oven for 30 minutes prior to baking.
- Use good quality pans like Fat Daddio.
- Spray your pans with nonstick spray and line with parchment paper.
- Don’t overmix your cake batter once you add the dry ingredients.
- Use room temperature wet ingredients.
- Use fresh baking powder.
- Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out with a few moist crumbs on it.
HOW TO MAKE THE BEST BUTTERCREAM
To get a light and fluffy, silky smooth buttercream, make sure you follow my tips: HOW TO MAKE THE BEST BUTTERCREAM
- Sift your powdered sugar
- Use slightly cold butter
- Use heavy whipping cream
- Beat for 5 minutes
- Stir by hand
You’ll want to check out the post linked above for more details on each step.
More Birthday Cakes You’ll Love
Confetti Birthday Cake
Ingredients
FOR THE CAKE
- 1 cup (226 g) unsalted butter room temperature
- 1 3/4 cups (350 g) granulated sugar
- 1/3 cup (72.6 g) vegetable oil
- 3 large whole eggs room temperature
- 3 large egg whites room temperature
- 1/4 cup (60 g) sour cream room temperature
- 3 cups (345 g) cake flour
- 1 tablespoon (14 g) baking powder
- 1 teaspoon (6 g) salt
- 1 cup (240 g) buttermilk room temperature
- 1 tablespoon (12 g) vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup (40g) rainbow sprinkles
FOR THE BUTTERCREAM
- 2 cups (452 g) unsalted butter chilled (I take the butter out of the fridge 30 minutes before I make my frosting)
- 6 cups (750 g) powdered sugar measured then sifted
- 4 tablespoons (57.75 g) heavy whipping cream
- 2 teaspoons (8.4 g) clear vanilla extract
- *This buttercream recipe makes enough to fill and cover your cake. If you want to add additional piping, you’ll want to make an extra ½ batch.
Instructions
FOR THE CAKE
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Prepare three 8-inch or four 6-inch round cake pans with non-stick spray, parchment paper on the bottom of the pan, and another coat of spray. Set aside.
- In a medium size bowl, whisk together the cake flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, oil, and sugar on high until fluffy and smooth, about 5 minutes.
- Add the eggs and the egg whites, one at a time to the bowl and beat on medium until well incorporated. Add the sour cream and beat on medium speed for a minute or so. It may look curdled, don't stress.
- Turn the mixer on low and add ⅓ of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix until fully incorporated. Then add half of the buttermilk and blend well, followed by another ⅓ of the flour mixture, the second half of the buttermilk and lastly, add the remaining flour mixture and mix until incorporated.
- Add the vanilla extract and beat on low until incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix on low for another 30 seconds. Fold in the sprinkles.
- Evenly distribute the cake batter among the three 8-inch or four 6-inch pans and bake for 23 to 28 minutes, until toothpick comes out with just a few moist crumbs on it.
- Remove cakes from the oven and let cool in pans for 10 minutes before inverting onto cooling racks.
- When cakes are completely cooled, I like to wrap each cake layer individually with plastic wrap and stick it in the refrigerator or freezer until I’m ready to frost. The cake will be easier to work with if it’s cooled a bit. If I’m making the cake a day or two before I actually need to frost it, I put it in the freezer to ensure freshness. If I’m frosting same-day, I’ll just put it in the refrigerator to chill until needed.
FOR THE BUTTERCREAM:
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter for about 2 minutes. This will soften the butter without it having to be warm.
- With the mixer on low speed, gradually add the sifted powdered sugar, one cup at a time, mixing a little in between each addition.
- With mixer on medium speed, add whipping cream, vanilla and salt.
- Turn the mixer to medium-high speed and beat for an additional 5 to 7 minutes. The frosting will become lighter in color and texture.
- Before spreading on your cake, spend a couple minutes mixing the buttercream by hand with a wooden spoon to push out the air pockets.
ASSEMBLY
- Place the first cake layer, top side up. Add about ¾ to 1 cup of frosting. Spread over the cake layer as evenly as possible. Make sure to get eye level with the cake to ensure the frosting is spread evenly over the cake.
- Repeat this step until you get to the final cake layer, which you will lay top side down.
- Apply a thin coat of buttercream around the entire cake to lock in the crumbs. Freeze for about 10 minutes.
- After the crumb coat is set, continue frosting and decorating the cake.
Can you use 9” pans? For two a layer cake
Yes
I made this recipe but turned it into cupcakes + a mini smash cake for my son’s first birthday party. Best cake I’ve ever had! The texture is so light and fluffy and the flavor is sweet but not overwhelmingly so. Will definitely use this as my go to!
So happy you loved it!
Is the baking temp right? Taste of Home lists it at 350.
Search the internet for a funfetti cake and a friend recommended your site. Recipe looked great. Made this for my daughter’s birthday it was amazing. I made two 9 inch layers, it was so flavorful and moist. This one’s a keeper.
Hi. I love the look of your sprinkles in the buttercream – it’s the perfect amount! Approximately how many sprinkles do you add to the buttercream for this look? Thank you so much Courtney!
About 1/4 cup. Not too many or it becomes hard to smooth the sides.
Where did you get your cake stand? I love it!
Old from target
Cake was delicious and the buttercream amazing. This buttercream recipe was more than enough to pipe.
What would be the baking temp/time if I did the cake in cupcakes?
Same temp about 18-20 minutes!
Hi there, can I use whole milk in place of buttermilk?
You can but it won’t quite be the same texture and result. Instead, if you don’t have buttermilk, add a tablespoon of white vinegar to the whole milk and let it sit to room temperature to create a buttermilk substitute.
Such a fantastic recipe – thank you so much for sharing Courtney! Have to say it’s one of my most successful cakes yet, absolutely loved by even the most fussy member of the household 🙂
Is there a difference in using canola oil, vegetable oil or olive oil?
No difference for canola or vegetable. But olive yes will give it a different taste.
Instructions say to add salt to buttercream, however NO salt is listed in the ingredients. How much should be added?
A pinch
Hi, we are trying to avoid vegetable oil. Could I sub avocado oil or coconut oil?
Yes, both will work. I also like grape seed oil and canola if those work for you.
I am extremely picky about white cake recipes! I made this recipe for my daughter’s 14th birthday cake with no modifications and this is hands down the best I’ve made! Thank you so much for sharing such a great recipe!!
Huge compliment! Thank you!
I followed the recipe exactly. I did not care for the cake very much. It was pretty crumbly just like some of the pictures show. I personally like a more dense cake. Icing was extremely sweet. I did decorate the top of it with fresh flowers and that was beautiful. Just letting others know it almost taste like a box cake. Sorry.
This is the most beautiful batter! I am going to continue to work with this batter even though my first attempts were not that successful. I also had trouble reconciling some of your measurements/weights with my measuring cups. Next time I’ll just use the weights. My first attempts, I undercooked and the cake shrank to about 1/2 it’s size from when I pulled it out of the oven. I’m using mini-pans, so it is a bit of a trial and error to get the right oven temp and timing. Any suggestions you could provide would be appreciated.
Hi Diane, the shrinking could be a result of a few things: The pan is too small, there’s too much liquid (or you’re in a high humidity climate), opening the oven or moving pans during baking, oven temperature is too low, or cake isn’t baked long enough. Maybe think about these things and play around with adding a little more flour, using a higher baking temp, etc.
I made this yesterday for a friend and it was incredible. I have the cookbook which lists 1/4c sprinkles for the frosting (not in this version) so I added those. This is honestly so much better than the boxed version and I’ve made a ton of recipes from the book and somehow this frosting was just the best I’ve ever had. I’m not typically a frosting fan but couldn’t stop eating it. Oh, also I used half salted butter in the frosting since it was all I had and just lowered the amount of salt I added and it was still amazing. No notes, best cake ever!
First time making a cake like this and it was so light and fluffy out of the oven. But after having it in the fridge for a day it was super dense when I cut into it. Is that normal?
Never store it in the fridge. It will dry out the cake. I like to cut mine into slices and double wrap for the freezer.