Funfetti Cake for Appu's best bud's birthday!

The month of May had been busy…super busy and for all good reasons. Which is why I hardly ever got much time to share recipes except for Instagram pics shared every now and then on Facebook and Twitter.  But we’ve been eating…yes , a lot! And I’ve been taking snaps…again A LOT! So a lot of recipes are coming your way!!

It was back to back weekend outings, friend's gatherings and lots of fun and food. One of the outings were organized by our good friends whose son was turning 2 and they wanted to have a fun celebration along with a fun trip. And I happily volunteered to get the b'day cake.  
I had a lot of ideas in mind and as usual went crazy deciding on what to make and finally decided on a colorful Funfetti cake. This cake is  super fun , very colorful and really easy to 'make from scratch'.  I think this is one of America’s top cake choice for children’s birthdays from what I've read and I'm so glad it turned out great!

He is my Lil’Appu’s best bud from 6 months of age, they both went to same daycare while we were at our old apartment and are literally chaddi buddy’s in every way  ;-P and almost behaves like twins! They copy everything each other does and it's a true delight to watch them play and they definitely had a hell lot of fun. 

As we had planned to start on our trip on a Friday evening after work, I had to make the cake on Thursday night, pack it up tightly without any frosting and take it with us to the cabin resort,  where we were gonna spend the weekend. The birthday wasn’t until Sunday, so I refrigerated the cake until then (we had made sure in advance that the resort had a fridge :-) )

I baked two 9x2" cakes so that the cake would be tall. A simple Whipped cream frosting was the easiest choice and all I had to do was take some whipping cream, powdered sugar and my electric hand mixer with me, also some sprinkles for decoration. 

On Saturday night, after a super fun day at the water park and once everyone had gone off to sleep, the ladies got down to the business of decorating the cake (it was almost midnight by then). I made the whipped cream and covered it over the cake and my friends (the b’day boy’s mommy and her friend) helped eagerly in decorating the cake with the colorful sprinkles and chocolate sprinkles.

And guess what , I had totally forgotten about writing over the cake and Avyay’s mom came up with a brilliant idea, use Bournvitta mixed in some whipped cream to form a Chocolate colored cream to write the name with. So I sifted some bournvita into a little bit of the whipped cream until I got the deep chocolate color I wanted and poured that into a Ziploc bag and snipped off the end and wrote the lil’ guys name on the cake! Genius idea I'd say...

The B'day boy was so excited seeing his colorful cake the next day that he immediately dug his lil'finger into the chocolate sprinkles and licked it all up, even before we cut the cake...can you see a tiny dent in the chocolate sprinkles? ;-) The extra candles were just to add some extra light and color!

And both lil’Appu and his lil friend were totally interested in the colorful sprinkles on the cake and kept going back again and again to lick up the cream and eat the sprinkles, giving me a tough time to take a pic ;-) But I'm so glad that the cake had the effect I was hoping it would have and the boys were stuck on to it like bees on a flower!!

And for a few minutes after the cake cutting the only scene in the room was everyone licking their fingers ;-)

The cake was moist, crumbly, flavorful and slightly dense (but I guess the denseness was  due to being refrigerated for almost 2 days before we cut the cake) , but that never affected the taste of the cake. So this a good cake to make ahead. 

Happy B’day once again dear Lil’Avyay and may you and lil’Appu remain friends all life long and hope you will remember and enjoy these moments in your life someday through these pictures and stories. 

Speaking of birthdays my Lil'Appu is turning 2 next month....and I'm as usual confused with all the ideas I have in mind. I'm just crazy about fun colorful themes for kid's b'days but I already did a colorful Rainbow B'day party last year for the champ...Any ideas anyone?? 

Funfetti Cake - made from scratch!

Recipe source:  Sally's Baking Addiction
(Recipe makes One 9" x 2" cake - I doubled it for above cake)

You’ll need

All-purpose flour - 1 and 2/3 cup

Baking Powder - 1/2 teaspoon

Baking Soda - 1/4 teaspoon

Salt – a pinch or 1/4 teaspoon

Sugar - 3/4 cup

Light Brown Sugar - 1/4 cup

Unsalted Butter, melted - 1/2 cup (1 stick)

Large Egg - 1

Yogurt - 1/4 cup (plain or vanilla; or greek yogurt; or sour cream)

Milk - 3/4 cup  (cow's milk; or soy milk; or almond milk)

Vanilla extract - 1 Tablespoon

Sprinkles - 2/3 cup (I used 1/3 cup colorful sprinkles + 1/3  cup chocolate sprinkles)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Spray a 9-inch springform or baking pan (round or square) with nonstick spray. Set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

3. In a large microwave-safe bowl, melt butter in the microwave. Whisk in the sugars vigorously getting out any brown sugar lumps - mixture will be gritty. Whisk in egg, yogurt, milk, and vanilla extract until combined. Slowly mix in dry ingredients until no lumps remain. Batter will be thick. Slowly stir in sprinkles, but do not overmix because the sprinkles will bleed their color.

3. Pour batter into prepared cake pan. Bake for 35-40 mins or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. (If top is browning too quickly, cover the top loosely with aluminium foil around 20 mins and continue baking)

4. Once Baked, let cake sit in the cake pan for another 5 mins and slowly release the sides of the cake pan (if using springform pan) and  invert the cake onto a wire rack and allow it to cool.
5. Frost with whipped cream or vanilla buttercream and decorate as desired.

-Manju