Funfetti Cake Woes and a Success

The first time I tried to make a funfetti cake was when my oldest daughter asked me to make one for her fourth birthday. I tried it. My first attempt I used a funfetti cake recipe from the internet. Not only did it not work at all, but the cake didn't even taste good. It was so bad that I threw the entire cake away. That was the first time that I had ever just trashed a cake because it tasted so bad.

The next attempt I used my own white cake recipe but the same cheap sprinkles and it wasn't pretty. I tried it one more time adding the sprinkles after the batter was already in the pans. This was the result.

 They basically turned the cake an unappetizing blue color. There were no spots of color. What was worse is that the sprinkles made it taste kind of sticky and gave it an odd aftertaste.

After those 3 attempts, I gave up. I decided it must be the sprinkles I bought on Amazon in a large bag. They were the cheapest rainbow sprinkles I could find. But I didn't know what kind would work, so I put it on the shelf for the moment.

 But who can resist those faces when they are so excited about funfetti? Time for another attempt. I mixed up half a batch of my white cake recipe.

 And tried Wilton nonpareils.

 I put less than a quarter of a cup, which was almost too much for the half batch I made.

 My four-year-old wanted to put in the sprinkles.

 I carefully folded them in, swirling maybe three times before I noticed the streaks. Enough folding!

 We carefully spooned the batter into the cupcake liners.

 But we noticed that at the end of spooning the batter became more and more mixed. So this is what it looks like when it's overbeaten.

 The cupcakes had a few visible spots of color, but the real test would be when they're cut into.

 And they're beautiful with tons of color! We finally conquered the funfetti challenge!