Start 2017 like it’s 1997 with this Fruity Pebbles Funfetti Cake! The cake is airy, soaked in creamy milk, and spotted with colorful cereal. It’s filling and frosting and satiny smooth. This cake is full of milk and cereal goodness!
What is 2017 filled with? We’re still in the neutral filled decade of brown, gray, and graybeige. Brass accents are a thing, revived from the 80s, and metallic everything is considered a neutral. Sedans are retrograde style of vehicle, as people need to be sporty in crossovers, hatchbacks, and SUVs. We are a people of contradictions and confusion, living and stumbling through the years. So really there is anything horribly new? Not really.
Pioneering into the New Year means reflecting and acknowledging the past. Fruity Pebbles Funfetti Cake is a constructed desire from my 90s childhood.
Let me explain.
I always wanted the bright colored cereal, entirely shaped marshmallows and bite sized french toast and chocolate chip cookies. But I had no autonomy over the groceries and such cereals never made it home. Cereals were an encountering, like an exhibit at a zoo. In the 90s, my brother and I would hold a competition. Down the cereal aisle of Grand Union we ran, snatching up the coupons hanging in front of the shelved cereals. At the end of the mad rush, we’d tally up and swap our coupons like trading cards.
These cereals were not apart of my childhood, but the desire of having them was oh-so present. Therefore, this Fruity Pebbles Funfetti Cake is a reflection of my desires for something I sought to consume.
This cake would’ve lived up to my childhood standards and expectations.
Using evaporated milk in the cake batter and soaking the baked cake with evaporated milk bolsters the milky flavor. The evaporated milk is similar in taste to the cereal milk. You know the milk. That creamy, vanilla-y milk that takes on the taste of the cereal.
So enjoy the New Year with something, well, not so new.
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- For the Fruity Pebbles Funfetti Cake:
- 3 cups cake flour
- 2 ½ cups granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon fine salt
- 1 ½ cups (3 sticks, 12 ounces) unsalted butter softened and cut into small cubes
- 1 cup evaporated milk, plus more for soaking
- ¼ cup sour cream, room temperature
- 5 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 2 1/2 cups fruity pebbles cereal
- For the Creamy Frosting:
- 1 ½ cups (3 sticks, 12 ounces) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
- 6 to 7 cups powdered sugar, sifted
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- pinch of salt
- For assembling the Fruity Pebbles Funfetti Cake:
- 2 to 3 cups Fruity Pebbles cereal
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 3 8-inch cake pans with baking spray, set aside.
- Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer.
- With a paddle attachment mix the dry ingredients on a low speed. Add the butter, a few cubes at a time, followed by the evaporated milk. Raise speed to medium-high and beat until evenly moist and the batter looks like a fluffy. About 1 to 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl.
- In another small bowl whisk together the sour cream, eggs, and vanilla. With the mixer’s speed on low (stir), add the egg-mixture to the batter in 3 batches, beating well after each addition.
- Add in the fruity pebbles and let the mixer stir them into the batter for 5 to 10 seconds. Fold the batter by hand a few times to evenly distribute the cereal and scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl down.
- Divide the batter evenly into the cake pans and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, rotating halfway. A toothpick inserted into the center should come out mostly clean with a few moist crumbs.
- Let the cakes rest in the cake for 5 minutes before inverting them onto a wire rack. Soak each layer with 1 to 2 tablespoons of evaporated milk. Cool completely before assembly or storage.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attach, beat the butter until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl, add the cream cheese, and beat until lump free and creamy, another 2 minutes.
- With the mixer’s speed on low, gradually add the powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating on medium-high after each addition. Add the vanilla and salt. Scrape the bowl as needed.
- Spread some of the frosting onto cake board and apply first layer. Spread the frosting onto the cake layer, followed by the second layer. Spread more frosting and top with the final layer. Use a bench scraper to scrape off the excess frosting on the base. Place in the freezer for 15 minutes to firm up the cake. Do a crumb coating with the reserved plain frosting. Chill for 10 minutes. Frost with remaining frosting and chill a final 10 minutes. Decorate cake with remaining frosting and cereal.