Funfetti Birthday Cake with Chocolate Feathers

Funfetti Birthday Cake with Chocolate Feathers | ZoëBakes photo by Zoë François

Last week my youngest son turned 18. It hit me that he’s a man and about to head out into the world to make his mark. I am so excited for him and looking forward to watching him and his brother become their own men, but it’s a touch bittersweet to watch them take off into the world. This birthday will be marked by several cakes and desserts, as we do around here. For his actual birthday, I was traveling and left him a flan, a long time favorite birthday request. The next day, when I returned from my trip I was met by the latest Bake From Scratch cookbook and immediately flipped to the Birthday Cake chapter. Sometimes we just want the classics, and there is nothing better than a really good white cake with vanilla buttercream. It’s probably the most popular cake combination, for good reason. I am perhaps the last baker on the internet to make a Funfetti Birthday Cake, but this occasion called for a bit of celebratory color!! I simply added sprinkles to the Bake From Scratch White Cake.

In the spirit of my son’s birthday, I have partnered with Brian Hart Hoffman and the excellent folks at Hoffman Publishing to Give Away a Copy of the Bake from Scratch (Vol 3): Artisan Recipes for the Home Baker cookbook, just leave a comment below about your perfect birthday cake. You can DOUBLE YOUR CHANCES TO WIN, by heading to my instagram page and signing up there too! Oh, and I have a few holiday cookie recipes in this cookbook, so I hope you’ll bake those as well!

Funfetti Birthday Cake with Chocolate Feathers | ZoëBakes photo by Zoë François

People ask me where I find inspiration and the truth is, EVERYWHERE! The decorations for this funfetti birthday cake were inspired by a Netflix special and a place card. I was watching a documentary about the fashion designer, Alexander McQueen, and I told my husband his dresses would make incredible cakes, especially a dress covered in feathers that already looked like a cake.  The place cards from my friends at The Punctilious Mr. P’s Place Card Company arrived and they were pictures of gorgeous birds that looked like cake toppers. It wasn’t inspiration as much as fate! The feathers are easy to make with white chocolate, which you can watch me make in my instagram video. Funfetti Birthday Cake recipe and chance to win the book are below!

Funfetti Birthday Cake with Chocolate Feathers | ZoëBakes photo by Zoë François

(place cards and holders by Mr P’s Place Card Company)

Funfetti Birthday Cake with Chocolate Feathers

Funfetti cake:

White Cake recipe from Bake from Scratch (Vol 3), fold in 1/4 cup colored sprinkles just before pouring into prepared pans. I baked the cake in three 6-Inch Cake Pans and baked for about 20 minutes, or duntil tester comes out clean. Once it was cool, I trimmed the sides, so the cake wouldn’t have a dark line between the cake and the icing.

Vanilla Buttercream from Bake From Scratch

You can find my crumb coat and cake decorating videos on YouTube (where you will see some vintage Zoë):

White Chocolate Feathers – 6 ounces white chocolate chips, melted – use chips, but not coating chocolate, since it doesn’t taste very good. I tried this with both the chips I linked to and Calebaut, which won’t set up as well unless you temper it, which I didn’t do in my video. See my instagram video to see how I form the feathers. You will need parchment paper, a toothpick and a small offset spatula.

Funfetti Birthday Cake with Chocolate Feathers | ZoëBakes photo by Zoë François

Funfetti Birthday Cake with Chocolate Feathers | ZoëBakes photo by Zoë François

Thank you to Martin and Karen at Mr P’s Place Cards for the beautiful inspiration!

Share this post

203 thoughts to “Funfetti Birthday Cake with Chocolate Feathers”

  1. this is so fun! My go-to birthday cake is a simple strawberries and cream sheet cake from Southern Living. I swear it helped snag my husband in the early months of dating and I make on every year for his birthday now!

  2. I’m a child at heart and my ideal birthday cake would be an ice cream cake! Maybe get fancy and use gelato instead? Possibilities are endless 🙂

  3. What a FUN Tastic Cake! Lovely and inspirational as always.
    Maybe I could talk my husband into making one for me for my birthday this Saturday.–probably not, since baking is not one of his skills. I guess I’ll wait until Sept and make it for his!

  4. My favorite birthday cake is a super yummy chocolate cake recipe that my mom has, and when I was in high school I made it so often that I ended up tweaking the ingredients to make it even better 🙂

  5. I really can’t decide. Probably a fingertip cake with a good Swiss or Italian meringue buttercream. Maybe with a mousse or curd in the middle.

  6. My perfect birthday cake would definitely have to be carrot cake with cream cheese frosting or my dad’s homemade angel food cake with my grandma’s chocolate frosting

  7. Love this cake!! My ideal birthday celebration cake is a dense chocolate cake with stick to your fork crumbs and a deep chocolate flavor. Minimum Italian meringue chocolate buttercream and a bit of vanilla ice cream.

  8. My perfect birthday cake would be chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate ganache! You can never have too much chocolate!

  9. rich chocolate cake with a dark swiss meringue and salted caramel filling, maybe some toasted almonds on top?

  10. My perfect birthday cake is a lemon chiffon with whipped cream frosting! My dad and my grandpa always insisted on having that for their birthday cake and it’s honestly so good that I want it too!

  11. This cake is stunning. My ideal bday cake is chocolate with chocolate and some chocolate, maybe with a side of chocolate

  12. Anything Chocolate! My
    sister who is a professional baker from Ukraine, makes this amazing cake that has a layer of chocolate cake, layer of meringue with lots of nuts, thin layer of apricot preserves and buttercream frosting; out of this world!!! My most favorite cake!

  13. My husband makes me funfetti every year for my half birthday! I was born close to Christmas, so my parents always had a half birthday party for me in June so I never felt gypped with Christmas and my friends could be there! Luckily I found a guy who embraces the celebration and always “surprises” me with a cake!

  14. My ideal cake would have like a lot of layers inside, like Vanilla bean Flan, raspberry Creme Legere, rose gelatine and a tres leches pana cotta! With my Marcuya Fondant and/or Italian Meringue

  15. Being Dutch, our perfect cake at home is and always will be our apple pie. We double the recipe and fill it to the brim with about large 10 apples. I always try new things with birthdays, to have some variety for the guests, but none ever defeated our apple pie!

  16. My family traditionally does ice cream cakes for birthdays, but this cake looks worthy of changing that tradition!

  17. Simple inside, no chunks or chips of chocolate or cinnamon for me. Most of all NO COCONUT! Thank you very much.

  18. My favorite for birthday cake every year is chocolate cake with chocolate frosting! Doesn’t get better than that!

  19. Perfect cake is always confetti cake I have 3 kids and the colorful specks makes them happy. On the other hand I love fresh fruits and deciding which frosting to use is another thing.

  20. Wish I had seen this before my brother’s bday last month!! This is his fav and he wanted a homemade version.

  21. My dream birthday cake is a super chocolatey cheesecake. So dense and indulgent for a birthday! Actually, this was my wedding cake too!

  22. I usually go with Birthday Pie (banana cream!), but for a cake I loooove David Lebovitz’s Ginger Cake.

  23. I’m always partial to cheesecake or carrot cake for my birthday but I’m also loving a passionfruit cake with mascarpone frosting right now so it might make the birthday spot this year!

  24. As a kid, my perfect birthday cake was the cake with the barbie shoved in the middle. It was like getting 2 presents! Now it could be as simple as an Angel Food cake with whipped cream. Simple yet delicious!

  25. I just wanted to let you know that my favorite cake of all time is A German Chocolate Cake but it has to be Homemade I don’t really care for store bought & the iceing has to be Homemade as well cause it just won’t taste right!!!

  26. Simple and classic is my favorite birthday cake – vanilla cake with chocolate frosting, and lots of sprinkles!

  27. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a “perfect” birthday cake but homemade treats never are! My mother always makes me me a standard homemade chocolate cake with vanilla icing. Simple and sweet:) Can’t get much better than that!

  28. My perfect birthday cake would be a flancocho! It’s a layered cake with a top layer of flan and a bottom layer of whatever flavor cake you like! I would choose chocolate.

  29. My favorite birthday cake is a Chocolate Fudge Cake made with a boiled glaze you pour over while the cake is still hot ❤️. Another fave is a classic Hummingbird Cake with Cream Cheese Fosting and lots of toasted pecans!

  30. I eat confetti cake every year for my birthday! Although, as I have gotten older, I have learned to move beyond a box mix

  31. What a clever way to make feathers! I always forget how versatile chocolate can be. Thanks for the inspiration; I will definitely have to try this on one of my next cakes.

  32. I love funfetti cakes decorated with buttercream frosting and more sprinkles! I believe you can never have too many sprinkles!!!

  33. I really loved Alexander McQueen and his visionary fragile world. This cake perfectly represent all of that. I wanna make it as soon as possible. Hope to be able to…!

  34. This cake is beautiful… love the feathers! My favourite cake is chocolate, anything from a malty milk chocolate cake to a dark stout cake.

  35. I love the chocolate cake that my mom used to make when I was a kid. I made it so many times when I was in high school that I eventually morphed the recipe into my own perfectly fluffy moist cake. So nostalgic 🙂

  36. Hi .. you’re a gorgeous chef … if USA mailing addresses only I have no chance to win .. thanks chef for everything “ recipe and steps “ you share with us .. ❤️❤️❤️

  37. My perfect birthday cake is a moist cake with buttercream. I’m not picky about flavors anymore as long as it’s moist! The funfetti is giving me some inspiration

  38. My perfect cake would be a moist chocolate layer cake with peanut butter cream filling and white buttercream icing, decorated with dark chocolate shards.

  39. My perfect birthday cake would be a vanilla cake with lemon curd and fresh raspberry buttercream frosting! But this would be the perfect cake for my soon-to-be one year old!

  40. For my birthday my husband made me a lavender cake with vanilla whipped cream! It was delicious and that became my favorite birthday cake since!

  41. My perfect birthday cake as an adult (sort of) would be some kind of lemon and coconut cake. Light and refreshing but so so satisfying! My all time favorite birthday cake I’ve had to do date though is still the vanilla fingertip cake my grandma baked for my 7th birthday. The cake was an intricately decorated Barbie skirt and it was beautiful!

  42. Although I’m a die hard chocolate fan, when it comes to cake, either carrot, lemon or funfetti are my favs! The new Bake from Scratch book looks amazing!

  43. For my perfect birthday cake I like to go all out. So I’ll make a cake with a lot of layers, a lot of decoration and probable some more cakes. My favourite is a fresh lemon pie, decorated with fresh fruit 🙂 but for the other ones I could use some help from the book!

  44. This cake it beautiful! So fun!
    Favourite birthday cake would have to be flourless chocolate cake! Although any excuse for cake is great.

  45. I love the idea of the delicate pristine feather look with funfetti! I’m making a chocolate tart for a dinner thing, and I think I’m going to attempt some mini chocolate feathers to top it. Such a cool technique!

  46. My favorite is yellow cake with chocolate frosting, but I would never say no to anything with lemon curd.

  47. My perfect birthday cake is a double dark chocolate cake with strawberries or cherries (not the canned stuff).

  48. My perfect birthday cake has got to be classic yellow cake with chocolate frosting even though it is so simple and totally basic!

  49. Normally I’m a vanilla cake girl but I made Molly Yeh’s Funfetti Cake recently and fell In love. Now I have to try the Bake From Scratch vanilla cake with sprinkles!

  50. I haven’t had a birthday cake but once since I left home. I think you should always have a birthday cake. Mine would be a malted chocolate cake with a beautiful decoration in chocolate with a delicate malted chocolate buttercream. With a side of vanilla ice cream. My goodness…

  51. Lemon butter cream between layers of a white cake w blueberries….. made by my niece who is a bigtime Zoe baking groupie!!

  52. This is BEAUTIFUL! My choice would be vanilla cake and chocolate frosting piled high – the classics are best 🙂

  53. My perfect birthday cake is a chocolate cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting. Just thinking of it is making me want a slice!

  54. I have a deep love for yellow cake with good, dark, fudgy frosting; but smitten kitchen’s Russian honey cake is my current favorite.

  55. My absolute favorite birthday cake I ever made was for my husband and son, who nearly share a birthday. It was a chocolate cake with peanut buttercream frosting and chocolate peanut butter fudge filling from Smitten Kitchen. Both of the boys are drummers, so I decorated the cake to look like a snare drum, complete with fondant drum sticks!

  56. My favorite birthday cake is anything my daughter bakes. For my birthday a couple of weeks ago she made me a chocolate cake with buttercream frosting. It was so good!!

  57. My current favorite birthday cake is a four layer chocolate cake with alternating chocolate malt Swiss buttercream filling and a toasted marshmallow filling, frosted with the chocolate malt Swiss buttercream and decorated with milk and dark chocolate malt balls!

  58. I think any birthday cake made with love would be perfect !
    But if I must choose … pistachio cake with a white chocolate frosting !

  59. Lovely this FunFetti cake.
    My perfect Birthday cake would be pecan cake with nutella and pecan filling with swiss meringue buttercream

  60. What a beautiful cake! My perfect birthday cake is a light sponge cake with a chocolate mousse & berries. Most importantly, it must be big enough to share with my family & friends!

  61. My dream cake would be a ruby chocolate and matcha terrine probably. The colours would look exquisite together

  62. Depending on which friends Birthday it is, I make Ginger sponge, Honey and Lemonmyrtle or Lemon and Wattleseed cake with flavoured buttercream filling and naked icing so they aren’t too sweet.

  63. I’m in college studying Economics but I love baking and my friends wonder how I bake during school!!! I really think that in the future aside from a job related to my studies I will pursue baking and I know the joy of sharing my food with others will be worth everything. I think my idea birthday cake would be something with a lot of mousse or cream and fresh fruits. I love when a cake isn’t just a cake itself but cream, fruits and other goodies.

  64. My perfect birthday cake would be a super chocolatey, super fudgey cake with lots and lots of sprinkles. But yours is beautiful!

  65. Inspiration? Right here, Zoe, on your site. You make me want cake at 8:10 in the morning! The most humble of cakes are elevated to special status with a birthday candle in it!

  66. Oooh, my favorite is a strawberry cake my grandma makes with real strawberries dotted in it with strawberry frosting. It’s always my cake from her.

  67. My favorite birthday cake is German Chocolate! I could eat the entire cake. But so many friends and family members request a yellow cake with chocolate frosting. This year my husband asked for a white cake with 7 minute frosting. Total fail! His usual request is angel food which I actually enjoy making!

  68. Perfect birthday cake is vanilla with whipped cream frosting and stuffed/topped with a bunch of glazed mangoes, strawberries, and kiwis.

  69. You are so talented. Great post.
    I love a dense chocolate cake with fudge frosting served with creme anglaise and a few fresh berries.

  70. My daughter’s favorite for her birthday was a homemade chocolate layer cake with bright blue buttercream frosting. Don’t know why. She’s in her 30’s and still requests it! Mine is ANY homemade cake!

  71. This cake is so beautiful! My go-to is a simple strawberries and cream sheet cake from Southern Living. I made it in the early months of dating for my husband and I’m sure it helped me snag him! We’ve been married almost four years now and he requests it every April for his birthday.

  72. My go-to is a simple strawberries and cream sheet cake from Southern Living. I made it in the early months of dating my husband and I swear it helped me snag him! We’ve been married for almost four years now and I make it every year for his birthday in April.

  73. My favorite Birthday cake is a is a rich espresso chocolate cake with a chocolate espresso butter cream
    My husband is a white chocolate fan so I make him a white cake with white chocolate butter cream.
    I think this white confetti cake may be right up his alley.

    Thank you

  74. my perfect birthday cake is actually funfetti- i typically make a milk bar funfetti cake for my birthday but will definitely be trying this one this year! ❤️

  75. This cake is gorgeous. Actually most everything I see on your website it gorgeous. I would love to win the cookbook. Thanks for the opportunity.

  76. My favorite birthday cake was a white layer cake with mike chocolate frosting and raspberry inside and on top on the inside of chocolate flowers.

  77. My favorite Birthday cake would have to be a chocolate cake with dulce de leche and almond or hazelnut meringue layer in between all the layers.

  78. Our family favorite birthday cake is the cover recipe on Dorie Greenspan’s, “Baking from My Home to Yours.” It’s a chocolate layer cake with Italian Meringue. Using the meringue rather than a buttercream or ganache makes for a much lighter cake.

  79. Shwärtzewalder! The combination of chocolate, kirsh and heavy cream… mmm…
    Love your cake. The feathers ❤

  80. Perfect birthday cake – Giant lemon fondant fancy with vanilla bean buttercream covered in lemon fondant and confetti sprinkles.

  81. Hi Zoe, My name is Annmarie Cefalu. I am disabled as well as being ill. but my dream is to be a pastry chef. My Mother just past away and there was no better friend or cook and baker. I want so badly to make her her proud with baking some amazing art work that you may eat eat. I cry everyday missing her, To be honest I do not know what to do. But I would love to make some of your amazing baked goods at lease for my dad and sister. Maybe my brother and his family as well. I am on disability, and money is tighter then tight, But Zoe I adore your work and wish I had half the talent that you have ,I am sorry, I do nott mean to give u my life story. I hop that u can understand that my mind is in a bad place right now. Please forgive me, I can not wait to try to make some of your amazing works or art. Thank u Zoe.

  82. My perfect birthday cake would be a pumpkin cake with a chai spiced ermine buttercream 🙂

    Happy birthday to your son! And what a lovely and beautiful cake 🙂

  83. Perfect birthday cake – giant lemon sponge fondant fancy with vanilla bean buttercream covered in lemon fondant covered with confetti sprinkles

  84. That cake is absolutely gorgeous! I’m a Bake From Scratch subscriber but I don’t think I’ve made any cakes. I think I will now!

  85. I love to bake cakes and would love more inspiration. The feather decorating on this cake is simply gorgeous. Thank you for sharing.

  86. Chocolate is always perfect for my birthday cake♥️ My mother always made me an old fashioned mayonnaise cake for my birthday ❣️

  87. Funfetti cake is the ultimate birthday cake; we make it from scratch. The chocolate feathers are a beautiful touch!

  88. My perfect birthday cake is one I have had every year since I was a teenager. My Grandmother use to make it for me and after she passed away, my Mom use to make it for me and after she passed away, my Husband now makes it for me. It is a chocolate cake made in a 13×11 pan, with chocolate whipped frosting and crushed peanuts over the top. Reminds me so much of my favorite candy, Reece’s Cups!

  89. This looks delicious. My perfect birthday cake is a 3 layered coconut cake…which my daughter made for me a few weeks ago.

  90. Love this!! Just finished my grandson’s “Construction” cake but this would have been so much more fun and much prettier! Next year! Who doesn’t love sprinkles???

  91. Love ALL cake!!! But why not make them all beautiful too??? This is so much prettier than the construction cake I had to make for my grandson last week! We did do sprinkles though!

  92. My favorite cake was a 2 layer sponge cake filled with lemon curd, frosted with sweetened whipped cream & topped with large chocolate curls! My Mom’s creation for a couple of my teen birthdays.

  93. This cake looks absolutely amazing! I can’t wait to share this article with my high school baking class today as it supports our recent discussion about working with a base recipe and then finding inspiration to add your own creative twist. Perfect timing! Fingers crossed that I win as this would be a wonderful book to add to my classroom library. On a personal note, my favorite birthday cake is always a Boston Cream Pie.

  94. I would LOVE a copy of your book!!! I’m really trying to improve my baking game and you’re fabulous! Thank you!

  95. What a beautiful cake!! My fave b-day cake: a lemon meringue cake, with loads of swirly toasted meringue that I got to torch myself 🙂

  96. My favorite birthday cake was a chocolate cake w/ chocolate ganache and a peanut butter frosting. So ggod!

  97. I just love all of your baking posts! Definitely one of my favorite instagram accounts! Especially love the feathers on this cake. Thanks for sharing your tips and tricks, you rock!

  98. My mom was really big on always getting us 5lbs worth of cake on our birthdays (alot of people I didnt know came to every single one of my birthdays till I turned 18). But honestly it was the best cake, it was a nice dense yellow sponge cake with dulce de leche filling and italian meringue icing all over the cake! And for me the best day to eat the cake, was two or three days after. I truly love “old” cake aka my favorite kind of cake.

  99. My mom was really big on always getting us 5lbs worth of cake on our birthdays (alot of people I didnt know came to every single one of my birthdays till I turned 18). But honestly it was the best cake, it was a nice dense yellow sponge cake with dulce de leche filling and italian meringue icing all over the cake! And for me the best day to eat the cake, was two or three days after. I truly love “old” cake aka my favorite kind of cake.

  100. My favorite cake that I (want anytime but) would love for my birthday is just yellow cake with chocolate frosting… You can’t go wrong at it’s like comfort food to me!

  101. Lovely cake! The feathering is so unique and I love that you find inspiration everywhere! I love to bake and share with friends. This will be one we try for just FUN (or funfetti if you like).
    P.S. Made the Chocolate Mousse with Toasted Meringue with my 10 year old son and he now is the “keeper of the torch”. We had adorable Valentine sprinkles on them. Thank you!

  102. For my last birthday, I made a tiramisu layer cake with angel food sponge, Kahlua and coffee cake soak, and a whipped cream and mascarpone frosting. It was pretty ideal. <3

  103. My birthday wish cake…really good, moist white cake, really good lemon filling, and yummy buttercream frosting.

  104. My favorite birthday cake is chocolate with chocolate icing (with a piece leftover for the next morning’s breakfast…)

  105. My favorite birthday cake is either strawberry shortcake or a chocolate mousse cake! So yummy 🙂

  106. I grew up in a family that loved the idea of more than one cake for birthdays. With friends there was an ice cream cake roll – my grandparents always showed up with the legendary Ebinger’s blackout cake and with my parents I usually had an eclair. Those were the days

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *