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Valentine’s Day Funfetti Cake

Valentine's Day Funfetti Cake
Funfetti cakes have been one of my favorite types of cake for celebrations for years. The colorful cakes are easy to make and never fail to put smiles on the faces of anyone being served a slice. They’re typically made with rainbow sprinkles, but by using holiday-specific sprinkles, you can tailor your funfetti cakes to suit any occasion. This Valentine’s Day Funfetti Cake is made with a mixture of red, pink and white jimmies, adding pretty pops of color that will get you in the mood to celebrate with your Valentine.

The cake is a vanilla cake recipe that I use for many layer cakes. It has an even crumb and a soft texture, but it is easy to handle when you need to stack those layers up nice and high! The cake uses both butter and vegetable oil. The butter blends with the vanilla and almond extracts to give it a great flavor, while the vegetable oil helps the cake to retain moisture and stay fresh tasting even after it has been sitting around for a few days. With a large cake like this one, it’s nice that you can take your time when you eat it!

This recipe makes an 8-inch, three layer cake. I baked the batter in three separate pans to ensure that each layer would be even. If you want to go for a fourth layer, you can divide the batter into two pans and use a sharp knife to cut the two cakes in half before assembly. If you don’t have three pans that can go into the oven at the same time, you can set some of the batter aside at room temperature and bake it after cleaning and cooling the pans used for the first batch.

The cake is finished with a vanilla buttercream frosting that both looks nice and tastes good with the finished cake. I used the “naked cake” technique of only putting frosting between the layers of cake, rather than wrapping it completely around the sides. This allows you to see the funfetti sprinkles even before the cake is sliced – and it also makes assembly very easy. If you prefer to frost your whole cake, simply make up a bit of extra frosting, put on a crumb coat and frost as usual. Don’t forget to finish things off with a few more red, white and pink sprinkles!

Valentine's Day Funfetti Layer Cake

Valentine’s Day Funfetti Cake
3 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 cup milk
1/4 cup red, pink and white Valentine’s Day jimmies
1 recipe Vanilla Buttercream (below)

Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease three 8-inch round cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, adding them one at a time, followed by vegetable oil, vanilla extract and almond extract.
Beat in one third of the flour mixture, followed by half of the milk. Beat in another third of the flour mixture, followed by the remaining milk. Stir in the last of the flour mixture, stirring just until no streaks of dry ingredients remain and cake batter is uniform. Fold in sprinkles.
Divide evenly into prepared pans.
Bake for 26-30 minutes, or until cakes spring back when lightly pressed and a toothpick inserted into the center of each cake comes out clean.
Allow cakes to cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then turn out onto wire racks and remove parchment paper to cool completely.
Cakes can be used when they are completely cool, or they can be individually wrapped with plastic wrap and used the next day.

Assembly
Place one cake round on a cake stand. Top with a generous layer of vanilla buttercream, spreading it all the way to the sides of the cake layer. Place a second cake round on top of the frosting and press down gently. Top with a layer of frosting and put on the final cake layer.
Add a thick layer of frosting to the top of the cake and smooth it until you have a flat, even surface. Finish cake with a ring of red, pink and white sprinkles on the top.

Vanilla Buttercream
1 cup butter, room temperature
3 tbsp milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
3-4 cups confectioners’ sugar

In a large bowl, beat together butter, milk, vanilla and 2 cups of confectioners’ sugar. Gradually blend in the remaining sugar until the frosting is thick, creamy and spreadable.

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3 Comments
  • Megan - The Emotional Baker
    February 5, 2016

    Can you believe I’ve never made a funfetti cake?!? This one is truly gorgeous and perfect for Valentine’s!

  • Meena@ AnchoredinSweets
    February 6, 2016

    What an adorable slice of cake. Looks very petite.

    QUES: have you ever made a cake with whole wheat flour?

  • Nicole
    February 7, 2016

    Meena – Yes, I have, but not this particular cake recipe. This cake looks best with all purpose flour because the sprinkles stand out most clearly on a white/pale background. If you want to use whole wheat flour, I recommend using white whole wheat flour and only substituting in 1 cup to start with. You can see how the results are and go from there.

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