If ever you wanted the perfect Birthday Cake recipe, this is it. Its creamy, spongy and packed full of vanilla! With your first mouthful you’re instantly transported back to jelly & ice cream and playing rounds of pass the parcel. The cupcakes almost taste like an old-school ice cream which is always a good thing, right?
The sprinkles are the starring role in these cupcakes and for that matter you need to be careful which ones you buy! ‘Funfetti’ is very much an American dessert and our hundreds and thousands or standard sprinkles just don’t cut it. Our sprinkles bleed into the batter, and give you a tie-dye effect that doesn’t look nearly as fun! These tie-dye sprinkles are called non-pareils, and are made into little balls.
What you do want, is edible confetti or jimmies (pretzel rods covered in candy). In the UK, these are much harder to find but thankfully I found a saviour in the form of the website Sugar Shack. Hooray! Here you can buy a ridiculous amount of sprinkles in all manner of shapes – so expect christmas themed funfetti cakes in a few months!! If you do want to recreate the recipe, the sprinkles that I used are here.
So, now that you know more than enough about the different types of sugar sprinkle (who knew right?!), on with the recipe!
Funfetti Cupcakes
Ingredients
Sponge
- 205 g plain flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 115 g unsalted butter melted
- 200 g caster sugar
- 1 large egg
- 55 g sour cream
- 180 ml whole milk
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 120 g rainbow sprinkles (not non-pareils)
Frosting
- 170 g unsalted butter room temperature
- 360 g icing sugar
- 60 ml double cream
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp salt
Instructions
- For the sponge: Preheat oven to Gas Mark 4/180C/350F and line a muffin tin with 12 muffin cases.
- In a medium bowl mix together flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt then set aside. In a large microwave-safe bowl, melt the butter in the microwave, then whisk in the sugar and chill in the refrigerator for 1 minute. Sir in the egg, sour cream, milk and vanilla extract until combined. Slowly mix in dry ingredients until no lumps remain. The batter will be thick and will look quite strange but rest assured it will all come together once all the dry ingredients are incorporated. Slowly stir in the sprinkles, but don’t over-mix as the sprinkles colour may bleed.
- Divide the batter among the 12 muffin cases and bake for 20 minutes or until a knife inserted in the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool completely on a cooling rack.
- For the frosting: In a medium bowl beat the butter on a medium speed with an electric or stand mixer with a paddle attachment. Beat for around 3 minutes until the butter is smooth and creamy. Turn the mixer off and add the icing sugar, cream, vanilla extract and salt then mix on a low speed for 1 minute before increasing to a high speed and beating for 3-4 minutes. If you are using an electric mixer, cover the bowl and your hand with a clean tea-towel to try and reduce the amount of icing sugar you get splattered around your kitchen!
- Finally, either using a piping bag or palette knife swirl your frosting onto the cooled cupcakes.
