Funfetti Cupcakes make any celebration more festive. Everyone loves a batch of fluffy homemade cupcakes filled with plenty of rainbow sprinkles!
It’s a well established fact right now that I love any dessert involving sprinkles! Funfetti cupcakes–with rainbow sprinkles baked right into the batter–are no exception.
Reasons To Make These Cupcakes:
- These from-scratch, vanilla based cupcakes are easy to make.
- Funfetti makes these cupcakes fun and colorful, perfect for celebrating.
- Topped with creamy frosting, they make a delicious dessert that everyone loves.
- You can change up the sprinkle colors to fit any holiday or occasion.
- A batch of these cupcakes is sure to bring a smile to the faces of those around you.
Funfetti Cupcakes
There are lots of reasons I love funfetti desserts. Not least of which is that I’m fairly certain it’s impossible to eat a piece of cake or a cookie filled with confetti sprinkles without grinning from ear to ear. We even love Funfetti French Toast around here for birthday breakfasts!
I’ve been known to reach for a boxed mix from time to time, but it when it comes to funfetti cupcakes, I love them best when they’re homemade from scratch. This easy Funfetti cupcake recipe makes moist, fluffy vanilla cupcakes sprinkled with rainbow chips that look like confetti!
Not only are Funfetti cupcakes so much tastier when you make them from scratch, they take hardly any more effort than reaching for a mix.
What is funfetti?
In case you’ve never experienced the delight of eating a slice of funfetti cake, a funfetti cookie or a funfetti cupcake, let me fill you in: Funfetti (or confetti) cakes have colorful sprinkles (or mini rainbow chips) added right to the batter before baking.
As the cupcakes or cake bakes, the sprinkles melt a little into the white cake batter. The rainbow colored spots look like party confetti! I’ve tried lots of variations on confetti cupcakes and these are by far my favorite.
The white cake makes the confettti colors “pop” beautifully–and you can’t beat the taste of a good, moist vanilla cupcake piped with creamy frosting! These cupcakes are the perfect choice for a kid’s birthday party but I don’t know any adult who’s going to turn these down either.
Funfetti Cupcake Recipe
Here’s a bit of information about each of the ingredients needed to make these adorable confetti cupcakes from scratch.
Cake Ingredients
- Cake flour – This gives the cupcakes a light, delicate texture. If needed, you can substitute with half the amount of all purpose flour, removing two tablespoons of flour and replacing them with corn starch.
- Buttermilk – Or use a homemade buttermilk substitute.
- Eggs – Bring the eggs to room temperature for best results.
- Sugar – standard granulated sugar.
- Butter – Melted and slightly cooled. Salted or unsalted is fine, based on your preference.
- Sprinkles – I used these rainbow chip sprinkles. Any kind of multicolored jimmies will work well here. Don’t use nonpareils! They’ll bleed color immediately making the cupcakes look dingy and unappetizing.
- Baking soda – always check the date to make sure it’s fresh.
- Baking powder – just like with baking soda, freshness matters!
- Vanilla – pure vanilla extract is always the way to go, but a clear vanilla flavoring can be used.
- Salt – just a touch helps balance the sweetness.
Frosting Ingredients
To decorate these cupcakes, I used a homemade buttercream style frosting with these ingredients:
- Butter – Softened for easier whipping. Once again, salted or unsalted is fine, use what’s on hand.
- Powdered sugar – also called confectioners sugar. A quick sift will create smooth and creamy frosting.
- Heavy whipping cream – if you must, you can replace with half and half or whole milk, but whipping cream is preferred!
- Vanilla – pure vanilla extract is preferred for taste, but a clear vanilla flavoring will give you a bright, white frosting.
- Salt – just a touch, helps balance the sweetness.
- Sprinkles – For decorating the frosted cupcakes. I used more rainbow jimmies, but you can use any sprinkles that strike your fancy here.
To make the cupcakes:
- Make the batter: Whisk together cake flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl and set aside. In a separate bowl whisk together eggs and vanilla until well blended. Whisk in sugar until well blended. Slowly whisk in butter and mix well to combine. Add ½ of the dry mixture to the wet mixture and mix until combined. Mix in the buttermilk and stir until combined. Mix in remaining dry mixture and mix just until combined.
- Add the sprinkles: Gently fold in sprinkles and mix just until combined.
- Bake: Scoop batter into prepared cupcake liners about 2/3 of the way full. Bake for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to completely cool prior to frosting.
How to make the Funfetti frosting:
1. Beat: With a mixer, beat the butter until light and creamy, approximately 3 minutes.Add powdered sugar to the butter mixture and mix until combined. Add in heavy cream and vanilla extract and once combined mix for 2-3 minutes on high speed.
2. Adjust to desired consistency: If frosting seems too thin, add more powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time. If frosting seems too thick, add more heavy cream, 1 teaspoon at a time, until desired consistency is reached.
3. Decorate the cupcakes: Spread or pipe frosting onto cooled cupcakes. Garnish with more sprinkles and enjoy!
More Fun Recipes
Looking for more easy desserts with plenty of color? Check out these other rainbow and confetti inspired desserts:
- Rainbow Cake
- Funfetti Bundt Cake
- Vanilla Confetti Cookies
- Funfetti Cake
Easy, adorable and delicious Funfetti cupcakes bring even more joy to any celebration!
Funfetti Cupcakes
Equipment
- Cupcake Pan
Ingredients
For the cupcakes:
- 1/12 cups cake flour
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 2/3 cup granulated sugar
- 6 tbsp butter, melted and slightly cooled
- 2/3 cup buttermilk
- 1/2 cup assorted sprinkles jimmies work best; avoid nonpareils
For the frosting:
- 1 cup butter softened
- 4 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- pinch of salt
Instructions
Cupcakes
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line a cupcake pan with 12 paper liners.
- Whisk together cake flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl and set aside. In a separate bowl whisk together eggs and vanilla until well blended. Whisk in sugar until well blended. Slowly whisk in butter and mix well to combine.
- Add ½ of the dry mixture to the wet mixture and mix until combined. Mix in the buttermilk and stir until combined. Mix in remaining dry mixture and mix just until combined.
- Gently fold in sprinkles and mix just until combined. Do not over mix or the sprinkle colors will bleed into the cake batter.
- Scoop batter into prepared cupcake liners, each should be about ⅔ full. Bake for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool in pan for approximately 10 minutes. Remove from pan and allow to cool completely on a wire cooling rack prior to frosting.
Funfetti Frosting
- With a mixer, beat butter until light and creamy, approximately 3 minutes.
- Add powdered sugar to the butter mixture and mix until combined. Add in heavy cream and vanilla extract and once combined mix for 2-3 minutes on high speed. If frosting seems too thin, add more powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time. If frosting seems too thick, add more heavy cream, 1 teaspoon at a time, until desired consistency is reached.
- Spread or pipe frosting onto cooled cupcakes. Garnish with sprinkles.
Notes
- If needed, the 3 cups cake flour in this recipe can be replaced by measuring out 1 ½ cups of all-purpose flour, removing two tablespoons of flour from the 1 ½ cups and replacing it with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch. Make sure to mix flour and cornstarch together well prior to using.
- Jimmies style sprinkles work best in this recipes. Nonpareils sprinkles tend to bleed their colors almost immediately which results in a dingy looking cupcake.
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