Vanilla Sprinkle Cake – Week 52!!

One year.  The Little Blue Mixer has been around for a year, y’all!  One whole year!  Man oh man.  So much has happened in this year, and I can’t wait to recap it all with you.  But, that will have to wait for next week, because I have something pretty spectacular to share with you this week…. Sprinkle Cake.  Get excited!

I really wanted to make a cake to celebrate one year of blogging, but I had a difficult time choosing which kind to bake.  (Mainly because I had already tried most of the recipes in the book!)  I finally settled on a vanilla cake and paired it with vanilla buttercream, keeping it classic.  I definitely knew how I wanted to decorate the cake, though.  I always get excited when I see sprinkle cakes, so I knew I had to try it out and give it my own special twist!  So, here we go!  Week 52’s baking challenge!

Also, I have something pretty fun I am going to share with you at the end of the post about a giveaway, so stay tuned!

In a mixing bowl, I combined flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt and then whisked them together.

Next, I stirred in the liquids – water, canola oil, milk, & vanilla.

I may have made a bit of a mess in the kitchen during this whole process…

The process for this cake is slightly different than most others.  Instead of just mixing in the eggs and sugar, I separated out the egg whites and beat them until soft peaks formed.  Then, I slowly added in the sugar and continued beating until there were stiff peaks.  Taking out the egg yolks makes for a whiter cake, and beating the egg whites adds a light and airy texture, somewhat similar to angle food cake.

Once the sugar and eggs were combined, I folded the mixture into the cake batter, poured it in the pans, and put it in the oven to bake.

After the cake came out of the oven, I whipped up some vanilla buttercream and then started stacking the cake.

As I was filling and stacking the cake, I decided it would be a fun surprise to add a few sprinkles in the middle of the cake!

After doing a dirty ice layer on the cake, I let it set in the the fridge for bit and then came back and added the final layer.

To get the sprinkles on the cake, I took a handful of handful at at time and gently rolled them up the side of the cake.  It was a little tricky to get the hang of, but after a few tries I got into a groove.

I did find a few downfalls to decorating a cake like this, though.  One – you have to be quick.  When the icing begins to dry, the sprinkles no longer want to stick to the cake.  Two – since I was using my hands to put the sprinkles on the cake, the icing didn’t keep a nice smooth finish.

Also, the kitchen basically became a sprinkle war zone. 😀

Sprinkles are definitely worth it though.  I mean, how fun is this?

Hey, look at all of the color in-between the layers!  Yay!  I was so happy with how the sprinkles in the middle of the cake came out.

I am cake.  Eat me now.  That’s what this cake says to me.

SO tasty!  I will be making this recipe again, my friends!

I want to give a huge shout out to all of my fantastic followers, you have made this year so wonderful.  I have loved hearing from you and getting to know you!  To celebrate a year of baking and say thank you to YOU, I am going to randomly give away a copy of the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook I have been using for The Baking Challenge!!  WOOHOO for free stuff!!  To be entered into the drawing, you just have to do 2 small things:

1. Click the lovely little “Follow” button on the right side of the blog (if you haven’t already!)
2. Leave a comment below with either
   • Something you would like to see me bake
   • Your favorite type of post from my year of baking  (cakes, cookies, breads, pastries, etc…)

I will announce the winner next week!  I want to hear from YOU!  And…. GO!

As always, I’ll be over at Fiesta Friday partying with this fun cake!  See you there!