Confetti Cake Recipe: A Parent's Guide to a Custom Birthday Centerpiece

Compiled by the editorial desk from the original recipe and personal account published on a cooking blog.

For a second birthday, a mother set aside plans for a traditional Swedish Princess Cake when her toddler's sudden obsession with a certain red Muppet took over. The result is a tested confetti cake recipe that can be dressed up as Elmo or served as a simple, festive sheet cake for a crowd.

The baker, who runs a popular cooking blog, had originally envisioned a party-sized Princess Cake—a buttery creation with custard, jam, and a marzipan dome. But as she notes, children around 18 months often develop an intense fascination with Elmo, seemingly out of nowhere. Her daughter's reaction to seeing the character on a board game box made the decision clear: the cake had to be Elmo.

The challenge was drawing the Muppet's face without it looking unsettling. Rather than risk a poorly executed character on a delicate Princess Cake, she decided to go all-in with a funfetti-style cake. This approach, she reasoned, would be more forgiving and more fun for a kids' party.

A Moist White Cake Base

The recipe she developed is a one-bowl white cake, which she tweaked to address the common problem of dry, firm white cakes. By reducing the flour and baking powder and increasing the butter, she achieved a plush, tender crumb. The cake uses buttermilk and vanilla for flavor, and rainbow sprinkles folded in for the confetti effect.

The recipe yields a single 8×8 or 9-inch round cake, perfect for a small gathering. For larger celebrations, she provides instructions for a sheet cake version: triple the cake recipe and divide between two 9×13-inch pans, baking for 18-20 minutes. This yields two thin layers that can be filled and frosted to make a 2-inch tall cake.

Frosting and Decorating

The accompanying buttercream frosting is simple to make, using butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, and a splash of milk or cream. The recipe makes more than enough for the single-layer cake, so there's extra for tinting and piping decorations.

For the Elmo design, she shares a practical method: print out coloring pages or simple line drawings, cut them into stencils, and trace the outline onto the chilled frosting with a toothpick. Then, using small piping tips, she filled in the features with tinted frosting. She notes that a #5 round tip works for most of the design, with a smaller #2 tip for fine details like the mouth corners and eyeballs.

The process, she says, is like coloring with a crayon, and the result was better than expected. The cake was served at a weekend party for two to three dozen guests, who enjoyed the two-layer sheet cake with extra buttercream between the layers.

For those who want a simpler option, the single-layer cake with frosting on top is described as "never unwelcome" and a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. The recipe is part of a forthcoming cookbook, Party Cake Heaven, set for release this fall.