One Bowl MOIST Vegan Funfetti Cake – Better Than Box Mix!

This vegan funfetti cake is somehow as easy as box mix yet tastes even better?! With a super moist, tender, and “buttery” sweet crumb full of rainbow sprinkles, and absolutely NO eggs nor dairy, every bite of this cake is pure rainbow nostalgia!

Why you’ll love this homemade vegan funfetti cake:

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

And with this ultra tender and moist vegan funfetti cake, you’ll be sure to please a crowd. All you need is one bowl, 9 ingredients, and some patience while this cake bakes (trust me, the aroma that will be coming from your kitchen will be very hard to resist!).

This is truly the best homemade vegan funfetti cake for a few reasons.

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.

That’s why I immediately had to make a vegan Funfetti cupcake based off of this recipe).

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

You also only need one bowl, and you can easily make this funfetti cake by hand or by stand mixer.

Funfetti cake ingredients:

Making an amazing vegan birthday cake comes down to the process.

You’ll probably be shocked to learn that our ingredients are actually really simple and probably already in your pantry:

• Flour: you can use all purpose flour, cake flour, or gluten free 1:1 baking flour. I use King Arthur all-purpose flour all the time here, but for gluten free, I use King Arthur measure-for-measure gluten free flour.
• Sugar: Make sure your sugar is either organic or certified vegan- otherwise your sugar may not be truly vegan!
• Dairy free milk with apple cider vinegar: this creates a vegan buttermilk. You can use soy milk, almond milk, oat milk, coconut milk, or whatever your favorite is!
• Vegan butter: My personal favorite is Miyoko’s but a good nut-free option is Plant Crock (country crock).
• Unsweetened dairy free yogurt: This is my favorite vegan egg substitute for cakes. Instead of going through the process of making aquafaba “eggs,” you can simply use yogurt! I also love using applesauce too.
• Vanilla extract: the recipe card says 1 tablespoon – the perfect amount of vanilla!
• Vegan sprinkles: For this vegan funfetti cake, I used Sweetapolita vegan rainbow sprinkles. They’re my go to for amazing vegan sprinkles. The one thing I will note about this sprinkle blend in particular is that the blue sprinkles run their color almost instantly upon being put into a batter, so you have to mix VERY gently (which will hopefully also prevent you from over-mixing your cake 😉 ).

How to make vegan funfetti cake (overview)

For the full written instructions and ingredient measurements, see the bottom of this post in the recipe card. You can also hit the “jump to recipe” button at the top of this post! Here, we’ll go over a brief overview of the steps, along with providing visuals for a better understanding of the recipe.

The cake:

Now let’s talk about the process.

Here are some tips on making the cake batter:

1. Whisk the dry ingredients. Be sure to use a whisk here, as this will ensure that the leavening agents are evenly distributed throughout the flour.
2. Use room temperature 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!
3. 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.
4. 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!
5. You can use a stand mixer or mix by hand. Either or works! I have directions for both down below.
6. You can make a two or three-tiered 8″ cake or a three-tiered 6″ cake. The photos of the cake shown here are a three tiered 8″ cake. Each cake layer is approximately 1″ tall. If making a three-tiered 6″ cake, the layers tend to be 1 1/2-1 3/4″ tall.

The Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting

Making an American vegan buttercream frosting or a vegan cream cheese frosting is actually not hard at all. It’s just like making a traditional frosting!

I actually have a whole separate post for how to make vegan buttercream, which is definitely worth a read. You could also do vegan cream cheese frosting, like on my vegan red velvet cake.

To do this, you’ll simply beat the vegan butter (and homemade nut-free vegan cream cheese if you’re making a cream cheese frosting) 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 do I decorate a funfetti cake?

This is my absolute favorite part of any cake process. The decoration part! You should have enough vegan buttercream to even color some of the frosting. But if you’re concerned about not having enough, you can easily make a double batch.

You can use these recommended tools for making a layer cake:

• Cake turntable
• Offset spatula
• Bench scraper
• Parchment paper

But you really just just need a cake stand and some patience. I do love the the offset spatula and the bench scraper, as that helps to achieve a really smooth outside edge. However, you can also do swoops like I did! To do this, simply use the back of a spoon.

You can also use a bench scraper, which creates a really smooth edge. Another idea is to roll the sides in sprinkles all together!

For the middle layers of frosting, I use about 1/2 cup of frosting per layer. That seems generous, but I do love a really frosted cake!

Then I use the remaining frosting to frost the outside of the cake.

The really important item to note about making a layer cake is that you need all layers to be fully cool so that the frosting doesn’t melt. This ensures that your cake layers won’t slip and slide onto the floor!

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!

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If you make this recipe, please be sure to leave a comment and a rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ below. This helps others to find the recipes! As always, I absolutely love to see your beautiful creations on Instagram and Pinterest, so be sure to tag me there as well!

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