Homemade Funfetti Cake with Funfetti Frosting 🎂🎉🍰 is as close to store-bought funfetti cake mix that I’ve been able to replicate at home and a reader favorite for over a decade! This cake is SO EASY, no mixer required, and you can get this scratch cake into the oven in 5 minutes! Change up the color of the sprinkles for various holidays to stay festive and seasonally on point.
- I’ve always loved Funfetti. Who can resist all those sprinkles buried in soft, fluffy cake? None of us in my house can.
- This homemade funfetti cake has sprinkles in the batter and also has a wall of sprinkles in the funfetti frosting. Sprinkle overload, such a beautiful thing.
- The cake and funfetti frosting are both fast and easy to make, and the cake always turn out supremely moist, springy, and fluffy thanks to buttermilk, sour cream, and oil.
- That trifecta of moisturizing and tenderizing ingredients makes it impossible to have a dry cake!
Funfetti Cake Ingredients
This is such an easy funfetti cake recipe! You’ll need the following basic ingredients:
Cake:
- All-purpose flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt are the dry ingredients you’ll need.
- Egg
- Buttermilk: You need it for the cake to rise so you can’t skip it. I suggest real buttermilk or you can always sour 2% or whole milk by adding a couple drops of lemon juice or vinegar to it.
- Sour cream: Along with the buttermilk, this creates the best and springiest cake. Greek yogurt may be substituted. Full fat always produces optimal results in baking but you can get away with lighter products here.
- Canola oil: You can also use vegetable oil or another neutral oil. I like oil rather than butter in this case because the cake turns out moister and with a preferred texture.
- Vanilla extract
- Sprinkles : Change them up based on the season if you’d like. Red and green for Christmas, orange and tan for Halloween, pastels for Easter and Mother’s Day, red white and blue for various patriotic holidays.
Funfetti frosting:
- Unsalted butter
- Vanilla extract
- Salt
- Confectioners’ sugar
- More sprinkles!
- Tip: If you don’t want to make frosting, you can always buy a tub of store bought frosting (vanilla, cream cheese, etc.) sold near the cake mixes at your store and then stir in sprinkles.
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
How to Make Funfetti Cake from Scratch
Here’s how this easy homemade funfetti cake recipe comes together:
- Whisk together the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet in another.
- Gently stir in the sprinkles.
- Turn the batter into a greased 8×8-inch baking dish and bake until the center is set and not jiggly, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs, but no batter.
- Once the funfetti cake comes out of the oven, let it cool completely before frosting. The homemade funfetti frosting is as simple to make as whipping the ingredients together until light and fluffy!
Baking FAQs
Nope! White cake is incredibly light, fluffy, and has such a lovely in flavor thanks to the multitude of egg whites in the batter. Funfetti cake is made with a whole egg, buttermilk, sour cream, and plenty of vanilla to create a richer, moister cake that is — yes — loaded with sprinkles!
Funfetti cake tastes like a richer version of a vanilla cake. It also has a subtle tang to it from the buttermilk and sour cream in the batter.
Get your hands on real buttermilk, if possible. Otherwise, you can make a buttermilk substitute in a couple of minutes. You can also use powdered buttermilk, which has a long shelf life and comes in handy for recipes like this funfetti cake.
I used generic, store-brand sprinkles to make this funfetti cake recipe and they didn’t bleed into the batter at all. Long, skinny sprinkles work best for this recipe.
If you’re concerned with the sprinkles bleeding into the batter, I recommend being very gentle when stirring them in. If you overmix the batter after adding the sprinkles, it may change color.
I have only make this with all purpose so really can’t say if cake flour will yield the same results with the same measurement of flour or not.
I’m sure you can. You’d need to double the ingredients listed and bake the funfetti cake in a 9×13-inch pan. Note that your baking time will differ since you’re making a much larger cake.
You probably can, although I haven’t done so myself so I can’t say for sure. If baking this recipe as cupcakes, you’d likely need to bake them for around 18 to 20 minutes. Use your best judgement!
Yes, you likely can double this recipe and bake it in two 8- or 9-inch round cake tins. To be safe, Google the volume of an 8×8-inch baking dish versus an 8- or 9-inch round baking tin to see how much of a difference there is between the two. This way, you’ll know if you need to double the recipe or 2.5x it, and so forth.
If you’re looking for a funfetti bundt cake recipe, I recommend making this recipe instead. I’ve tested it multiple times and know that it works in a bundt pan.
Recipe Video
More Desserts Using Sprinkles:
Easy Homemade Funfetti Bundt Cake — No cake mix in this 100% homemade funfetti cake that’s loaded with sprinkles and tastes amazing! Fast, easy, and the best scratch funfetti cake recipe!
Funfetti Cookies — These funfetti cookies are essentially sugar cookies from scratch that have been loaded with sprinkles. They have that nostalgic boxed cake flavor but are 100% homemade!
Oreo Chocolate Chip Funfetti Cookies — The cookies are loaded with Oreos, sprinkles, chocolate chips, and are adapted from my favorite recipe for chocolate chip cookies. They’re soft, moist, buttery, and thick enough to sink your teeth into!
Funfetti Cake Mix Cookies — Jumbo, super soft, slightly chewy cake mix cookies that are loaded with rainbow and confetti sprinkles, and topped with vanilla cream cheese frosting!
Birthday Cake Cinnamon Rolls — The softest, fluffiest, most tender cinnamon rolls stuffed with cinnamon-and-sugar and rainbow sprinkles! Topped with tangy cream cheese frosting and more sprinkles!
Copycat Lofthouse Sugar Cookies — Just like real Lofthouse cookies, but with sprinkles baked in! These cookies are soft, buttery, and they just melt in your mouth!
Haha I love the name of the shower. And all the sprinkles. Almost makes me want another baby. (Um, not.) :) Pinned of course. These look amazing. Love the crumb!
Thanks for pinning and I almost had a minor heart attack when you said that :) lol. I am so one and done and with an almost 8 year old, never again!! will I be going back to all of that :)
Sprinkles are a must for celebrating! This cake looks so festive! LOVE! Pinned of course!
Thanks, Anna! :)
You definitely can’t go wrong with a classic funfetti cake! Your pictures are gorgeous, Averie! And that vanilla buttercream is just calling my name!
Funfetti makes everything better!
These are so fun!! Makes me want to go get my massive tub of sprinkles out, they’re so pretty! :)
This is absolutely perfect!!! It looks amazing!
Averie, this is such a fun cake! All those sprinkles! What a happy to cake to have when it’s so dark and dreary outside here today, I imagine my kids would inhale this just like your daughter did!
What a gorgeous looking slice of cake, it’s no wonder your daughter inhaled it :) I’m sure Jessica will love it as well!!
This is such a Jessica appropriate cake :) all the sprinkles are adorable, and I can’t resist funfetti cake either, anything that has cute pink sprinkles is a weakness for me.
averie!!! these sprinkles. omg. so neon. i love them so much. i want to make this right now. THANK YOU!!! xoxoxo
I am so glad you were surprised!!! Honestly with like 50 girls or whatever participating, I was sure the cat would get out of the bag, but…it didn’t! Bev was amazing :) And I wish you nothing but the best and am sooooo happy for you and Eddie!!! xoxooxo
The funfetti creates this strange feeling that make you smile with no reason :) That cake look mouthwatering!
this is more than fun this is like a dream come true. It looks amazing and so sweet and buttery. My kids would go nuts for it as well as myself
this is more than fun this is like a dream come true. <--- ahhh, I love that, thanks! :)
What a fun cake! I love how colorful it is. This would be a great cake to use for a rainbow birthday party, as opposed to dyeing all those layers.
Such a bright, festive cake! The sprinkles are a nice departure from all the usual fall colors right now (and I like the extra on top of the frosting). The list of recipes is impressive–it would be fun to have a taste of everything!
I know, I wish it was a real life shower! Total awesome smorgasbord!
Wow that is quite a list of bloggers…now that would be a fun shower…this cake is beautiful…it’s almost too pretty to eat but I’m pretty sure I could make an exception…love it…My birthday is this month and I may just need to make myself this cake!!!
It may look pretty but I swear to you, this is almost like a cake mix cake! Wham, bam, in the pan, and done :) And happy early birthday!! LMK what you make for your month of festivities (I hope!), either my recipes or others, I love hearing what people make!
These look amazing! Definitely one to try over Christmas :)
Bea x