homemade funfetti cake with professional buttercream

I'm hanging out with one of my friends and his girlfriend later today and since I'm actually meeting her for the first time, I wanted to bake her something! So I asked what her favorite dessert was and she said "funfetti cake or anything with pink frosting," and I decided to combine the two. I couldn't find food coloring anywhere so I improvised and used the juice from a bottle of maraschino cherries to color the frosting, but of course, it's easier to use food coloring. Surprisingly the frosting only has a slight taste of the cherries. The frosting tasted way too buttery and was a weird consistency after adding so much liquid so I decided to add confectioners' sugar until it looked more like frosting. This cake looks so 1950s-esque which makes me super happy. I hope it's yummy and liked and there may be more photos of it once we cut it later.

for the cake (recipe via What Katie's Baking)

• 4 egg whites
• 1 cup whole milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 ¾ cups flour
• ⅛ cup cornstarch
• 1½ cups sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 stick of unsalted butter, softened
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• ½ cup rainbow sprinkles

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray two 8" round cake pans.
Combine the egg whites, vanilla, vegetable oil, and whole milk. Whisk together and set aside.
In a large mixing bowl; sift the dry ingredients. Fitted with a paddle attachment, blend the dry ingredients with the butter and half of the milk and egg white mixture. Scrape the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl, and then slowly add the remaining mixture and stop mixing once combined.
Fold in sprinkles and pour mix into pan. Bake in preheated oven for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.


for the frosting (recipe adapted from Yammie's Noshery):

1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
6 egg yolks

2 tsp vanilla extract
1 lb. COLD butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
about 1/2 cup juice from maraschino cherries (or a few drops red food coloring)

confectioners' sugar

Beat the egg yolks and vanilla for about 8 minutes until they're more than doubled in size and very pale.
Meanwhile, heat the water and sugar in a medium sized saucepan on medium high heat. Once the bubbles in the sugar start getting bigger you can start checking the temperature. It needs to be 234º-240ºF on a candy thermometer. If you don't have a candy thermometer, you can just take a spoon of it and dip it in ice water to cool it quickly so that you can check it. Once you can form a "soft ball" in your fingers with the syrup, then it's ready. Now, turn on the mixer that you were beating the eggs with and carefully pour a thin stream of the syrup between the beater and the side of the bowl. If you get it on the side it will just harden. Once all the syrup is mixed in to the yolks, just continue beating it until when you touch the bottom of the bowl, it's just slightly warmer than room temperature. Now take a small handful of your cold butter at a time and beat it in with the mixer on full speed. Do not add any more until the last handful is all combined. Beat it all until it's smooth and fluffy. Add the liquid from the cherries while beating slowly, then add confectioners' sugar until the frosting is of fluffy, spreadable consistency.

Frost your cake and decorate with more rainbow sprinkles and some cherries!