Homemade Viral Dot Cakes (with No Artificial Dyes)

A buttery funfetti crumb, naturally colored sprinkles, and a simple assembly...

I’ve been seeing the viral dot cakes all over and wanted to make a homemade version with no artificial coloring or synthetic dyes. I love that they come together as little single-serve cakes, finished with a blanket of dots on top that are oddly satisfying. I used naturally colored sprinkles so you get that same bright, playful look without anything artificial.

Funfetti was my favorite growing up. I made the boxed version constantly in high school. I still have a soft spot for it and there’s something so nostalgic about it, but I looked at the ingredient list recently and couldn’t believe what was in something I used to eat by the spoonful: Red 40 Lake, Yellow 5 and 6, Blue 1, propylene glycol, BHT, and a long tail of additives I can’t pronounce. The candy bits alone have four artificial dyes. Half of it isn’t even real food, it’s dyes for color, preservatives like BHT to give a boxed mix a two-year shelf life, and fillers to hold it together, none of it there to make the cake taste better or do anything good for your body. Making it from scratch gets me the same funfetti I loved, with butter, eggs, and naturally colored sprinkles instead.

The kids and Anthony were the official taste testers on this one, and the cake didn’t last long! Elliott was pulling pieces straight from the pan before it ever made it into a ramekin, and I did too (I love a good cake without any frosting sometimes). It’s buttery with a fine, tender crumb and just enough vanilla, the kind of cake that holds up on its own without needing frosting to carry it.

The whole thing is easier than it looks. You bake one sheet cake, cut out rounds, stack them with buttercream in a ramekin, and flip the top into a plate of sprinkles. You’ll want a stand mixer or hand mixer to get the buttercream light and fluffy. We also fold naturally colored, naturally flavored sprinkles right into the batter, so the cake bakes up funfetti on the inside with little flecks of color in every slice.

I made a few swaps to keep the ingredients clean: grass-fed butter, pasture-raised eggs, organic cane sugar, unbleached flour, and aluminum-free baking powder. None of it changes how simple the recipe is, but it makes a treat I feel good about handing to the kids.

These are the kind of thing I'll keep making all summer, for birthdays, or any time the kids need a little something special. They had so much fun making them together! Full recipe below, plus everything we used to make them: