Funfetti Confetti Cake

Cake is festive. That's a universal truth. It usually symbolizes a party , especially if it's a colorful one, dusted with a rainbow of sprinkles. Now those sprinkles are inside the sweet treat, giving a more festive look.

Julia Moskin wrote about a new party classic - confetti cake in yesterday's New York Times Food section. Whatever you call them, whether they're candy confetti, sprinkles ,jimmies, or hundreds of thousands, they are big right now.Pro bakers and even mixologists are using them on  everything from cocktails to croissants.They're even used to decorate phone cases,scented candles and even press on nails ! Now they're exploding all over cakes, turning bland white cake into a Jackson Pollack canvases. Why now?Most bakers were kids in 1989s when a new product burst upon supermarket shelves.Pillsbury came out with Funfetti Cake,a vanilla cake mix that came with multicolored sprinkles.The twist was that they were going to be baked into the cake. They'd melt into streaks and dots of vibrant color which made them into an instant hit. Funfetti cake was then a definite must for every home party.Copycats soon abounded.A year later, Betty Crocker came out with Dunkaroos, a snack pack of cookies with sprinkle laced icing. Even Dannon Yogurt jumped in on the craze.In 1992 they came out Dannon Sprinklins, with candy confetti packed separately in the lid.

Now there are grown up versions of the cake all through Manhattan.Pastry chef , Christina Tosi, of Milk Bar in New York was one of the first to produce colorful cakes. Her passion for sprinkles started when she was young and it was with , of course, Funfetti. She cleverly turned the cake batter into cookie dough. Her current take is still the number one requested dessert, and at the NoLiTa outpost of MilkBar, there's even a wall of sprinkles. She's also put them in homemade tahini ice cream sandwiches and mandelbrot, the twice baked almond cookie.Chef Yeh loves them so much that she even had guests throw them at her wedding.Fancier bakers around the city have even put them in croissants and macarons along with giant Funfetti wedding cakes Some are even making their own hundreds of thousands. Sohla el- Wayly of the Hail Mary Diner in hipster Greenpoint makes her own. These are vanilla and rose flavored, made with egg whites,confectioner's sugar and food coloring. She pipes them in long, skinny lines on parchment paper, allowing them to air dry. They're then  "plastered" on the diner's tall vanilla cake giving it a wild , eccentric quality, like something from the Mad Hatter's tea party. The best bet is to go to your grocery store's bake shop where you can buy medium sized cups of multicolored sprinkles. some even have holiday colors, like black
and orange for Halloween and red and green for Christmas.

Sprinkles amp up a cake's fun factor. Go crazy with them and create an explosion of color with every slice.It's a fun way of celebrating cake.