The ULTIMATE Vegan Funfetti Cake

This is the only vegan funfetti cake recipe that you’ll need! An incredibly tender and sweet vanilla base sprinkled with homemade vegan rainbow sprinkles and topped with a rich vegan buttercream frosting for the best birthday cake!

When it comes to birthday cakes, you just need all the sprinkles.

I mean, why the heck not?! We’re celebrating the day you were born! And with this ultra tender and moist vegan funfetti cake, you’ll be sure to celebrate in style.

The Best Homemade Vegan Birthday Cake

I know it’s a bold statement to make, but hear me out.

I’ve had not one, not two, not three, but four random taste testers confirm that this is the best funfetti cake they’ve ever had…period.

Yes, vegan or not! Of course, this birthday cake is vegan, but not all of my taste testers subscribe to a vegan diet, so this made me extra excited.

The homemade vegan funfetti cake is:

Moist & fall-off-the-fork tender

Rich with sweet and buttery notes of vanilla

Sprinkled with pops of all natural plant based color

Light & fluffy

Undetectably allergy friendly for those that need dairy free, egg free, easily gluten free, and nut free

Trust me when I say, this is truly the only birthday cake recipe you’ll need. Make this once, and you’ll get requests from just about every single family member, friend, and colleague.

You’ve been warned 😉

How to make vegan funfetti cake

Making an amazing vegan birthday cake comes down to the process. Of course, you’ll need some key ingredients, but this vegan funfetti cake is made with all natural and simple ingredients.

For this vegan cake, you’ll need:

• Cake flour: you can also use all purpose flour or gluten free 1:1 baking flour. Just make sure to see the section below on how to still reach that tender texture
• Sugar or coconut sugar: if using coconut sugar, the color will be slightly darker, but still beautiful!
• Leavening agents
• Dairy free milk with apple cider vinegar: this creates a vegan buttermilk.
• Vegan butter: the true way to get that traditional funfetti flavor!
• Unsweetened applesauce: instead of going through the process of making aquafaba “eggs,” you can simply use applesauce!
• Vanilla extract: the recipe card says 2 tablespoons and YES, you really need that much!
• Vegan sprinkles: I used homemade vegan sprinkles for this (which I talk about down below!), but if you don’t want to go the homemade route for your homemade funfetti cake, you can use store bought vegan sprinkles!

A note about sprinkles: many sprinkles are not vegan; if you do follow a vegan diet specifically, please ensure that the sprinkles that you’re using are indeed plant based.

The cake batter

Now let’s talk about the process. Making a vegan birthday cake is pretty straight forward, but here are some tips on making the cake batter:

• Be sure to whisk together all of the dry ingredients.
• When adding in the wet ingredients, make sure that they are room temperature. Room temperature wet ingredients will make sure that your vegan cake doesn’t turn out gummy!
• Don’t over mix the batter! Once all the wet ingredients are combined into the wet, add in the sprinkles and gently fold together just enough to evenly distribute.
• As mentioned above, add in the sprinkles last! Especially if you’re making homemade vegan sprinkles. This will make sure that the sprinkles don’t start to run their color into the batter before it’s even in the oven!
• You can make a two-tier 8″ cake or a three-tier 6″ cake. I loveeeee three tiered cakes, but decided to go with two for this one 🙂

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The vegan buttercream frosting

Now for the icing on the cake 🙂 Making an American vegan buttercream frosting is actually not hard at all. It’s just like making a traditional buttercream frosting!

To do this, you’ll simply beat the vegan butter until whipped.

Then sift in the already sifted powdered sugar into the vegan butter while you beat. You can use a stand mixer for this or a hand mixer. Either works!

Once the buttercream is fluffy, smooth and creamy, frost your vegan funfetti cake!

You can reserve some extra frosting if you’d like to do some fun designs, and definitely add some sprinkles on top, as this signals to everyone that this is a rainbow cake (not just your average cake!).

How to make homemade cake flour

If you’re a cake connoisseur like me (jk, I’m not Paul Hollywood, but I do love a good cake), then you know that cake flour is essential for making a tender and moist cake.

Now, if you only have all purpose flour or even if you want to make this a vegan gluten free funfetti cake and use 1:1 gluten free baking flour, you can still reach that desired tender cake texture.

To do this, simply add in an additional teaspoon of arrowroot powder or cornstarch, and whisk it into the flour. By adding this powder, it magically transform your cake from a good birthday cake to a fantastic birthday cake.

Homemade vegan sprinkles for the best vegan birthday cake recipe

For this vegan birthday cake, I decided to go with making my own homemade vegan sprinkles.

I found Gretchen’s Vegan Bakery’s homemade sprinkles recipe and absolutely loved it. It’s just water or aquafaba and powdered sugar.

For the colors, I used beet powder for red, turmeric powder for yellow, matcha powder for green, a plant-based blue food dye from Whole Foods for blue, beet + turmeric powder for orange, and beet + the blue food dye for purple.

To achieve the desired colors, always start with a little color and work your way up.

Now, making your own vegan sprinkles is a bit of a process, so if your making this vegan funfetti cake for a really special occasion, totally worth it.

If you don’t want to go through the hassle of making homemade vegan sprinkles, there are many plant based sprinkles on the market that are great! I really love the 365 Brands vegan sprinkles for their fun pastel colors.

Homemade Vegan Funfetti Cake Tips & Tricks:

• Always remember to sift your flour. This will ensure that the cake batter won’t bake too gummy, which is especially an issue for vegan cakes. By sifting the flour, you’ll ensure that your vegan funfetti cake will be perfectly tender!
• While you’re at it, sift the powdered sugar too! When making homemade vegan American buttercream, it is important to sift the powdered sugar as well, even just for cakes. This ensures that there are no clumps of powdered sugar in the frosting so that you have an ultra smooth vegan buttercream.
• You can use cake flour, all purpose flour, or 1:1 gluten free baking flour. If using either of the latter two, please make sure to add in 1 tsp arrowroot powder or cornstarch, as this will help achieve that tender cake texture.
• Double check your leavening agents to make sure that they’ve been stored properly or that they aren’t expired.
• Have fun with the decorations! You can reserve some leftover frosting and pipe it on the top, as I’ve done, as well as gently pressing sprinkles up the top of the cake sides.

I hope you love this vegan funfetti cake as much as I do! I think anything with a rainbow of colors is sure to brighten anyone’s day 🙂

If you make this recipe, be sure to let me know how it went down below in the comments section, as well as giving it a rating so that others can see it!

As always, I love to see your beautiful creations on Instagram and Pinterest, so be sure to tag me there!

Happy funfetti baking!

More healthy vegan cake recipes you’ll love:

The BEST Vegan Vanilla Cake

Ultra Rich Paleo Vegan Chocolate Cake

Vegan Blueberry Lemon Cake

Paleo Vegan Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Vegan Chocolate Peppermint Cake

Almond Cherry Bundt Cake

Harry Potter Birthday Cake

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