Sprinkle Cake Tutorial
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A step-by-step tutorial on making a sprinkle cake with a fondant-covered cake, and how to make your own custom coloured sprinkles!
Sprinkle cakes have been popular for a while now, and it’s easy to understand why. Who doesn’t love sprinkles? Well I guess there are some folks out there that don’t, but to be honest I don’t have time for those people in my life. And I have a lot of time on my hands. So that’s sayin’ something.
The fact that sprinkles became a very important part of my niece’s Tumblr inspired birthday party was kinda my dream party come true, because I will pretty much throw sprinkles at anything that doesn’t move.
We went pretty heavy on the sprinkle theme for the party foods. I made some donut shaped cookies, which my expert assistant (the birthday girl herself) sprinkled with, well, sprinkles, as I iced the cookies.
Katie made white chocolate and sprinkle covered strawberries and marshmallows. I made sprinkle macarons, and my mum and I decorated the rims of jars with candy melts and sprinkles, and I filled them with white chocolate mousse. I added a bit of freeze-dried raspberry powder to the leftover mousse (which was my 3 ingredient chocolate mousse made with white chocolate) and piped them into itty bitty chocolate cups.
I also made one giant donut cookie as a candle holder, since I used a small base board for the cake, and left myself with nowhere to put candles.
And of course, I sprinkled the living daylights out of the bottom tier of the cake, before topping it with a watercolour top tier, and a custom gumpaste name cake topper.
Most of the sprinkle cakes I’d seen were made with a buttercream or ganache covered cake, but I’d given myself a strict timeline to make this cake, starting four days out to allow myself an extra stuff-up day (because I’m generally incapable of making a cake without screwing something up and stressing myself into a crying mess), and I was heading up to Katie’s house for the night to help with the party prep, so I wanted it all done and dusted (so to speak) the day before the party. This meant I didn’t want to do a cake without the fondant to protect it and keep it fresh, therefore I had to do this the slightly harder way and use candy melts to adhere the sprinkles to the fondant.
Is it easier to do this cake in buttercream? Yes. Would I suggest you use buttercream if at all possible? Sure would. But, if time, design or storage constraints mean you need to use fondant, then this sprinkle cake tutorial is for you.
The reason doing this on fondant makes things trickier is that candy melts set pretty quickly. This means you have to work fast to get the sprinkles on before the melts set. I worked out while doing this that I had about 8 minutes before the candy melts set, in our kitchen that was probably around 20°C.
But, there is a secret weapon that you can use if your melts have set too quickly, if you happen to have one in your house – a hairdryer, with a diffuser attachment. The diffuser means you can heat the candy melts up without blowing sprinkles all over your kitchen. Which is good, because even without doing that you’re gonna get sprinkles everywhere. No need to make it worse.
About these sprinkles. Theeeeese sprinkles…
Couldn’t you just jump right in? No? You don’t want sprinkles all up in your personal business? Ok, that’s cool. But they’re pretty, right?
I had a specific colour palette in mind for this cake (and when anyone who knows me well reads this, they’ll be all “of course you did, anything to make life more difficult”, and they’d be right) so I bought all the sprinkle colours separately, and for some of the colours, I coloured them myself. Which is not as hard as is sounds. Certainly easier than trying to make sprinkles from scratch. Not that I tried that (I so did try that. Epic fail).
All you need is some white sprinkles (I did both the small round non-pareils and also the longer jimmies) and some gel food colouring. Oh and a tray lined with baking paper to spread them out on. And a resealable plastic bag. That’s all.
This was the first time I’ve bought one of the delightfully big 1kg bags of sprinkles from Kiwicakes, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ll probably buy more. Once I make some room for them in my sprinkle drawer.
Yes, I have a sprinkle drawer. I am not ashamed of that, either.
To colour the sprinkles, just chuck some in the bag, squirt in some gel colour (start small, you can always add more), close up the bag and smoosh it all around.
Be gentle but thorough, you don’t want to crush the sprinkles. It will take a minute or two to get them all covered.
Then spread them out on a baking paper lined tray and leave them to dry. I was impatient, so as I did each colour, I popped the tray into the oven with no heat, but with the fan turned on. They took about 20 minutes to dry in the oven, but you’d probably only be looking at an hour or so to dry if you don’t use the oven. Give them a bit of a stir around a few times to make sure all the sprinkles separate and dry evenly.
There may be a little bit of colour transfer with custom coloured sprinkles, which for most uses won’t be an issue, but if you’ve used a lot of gel colour to get a dark shade of sprinkle, then you can add a small amount of cornstarch into the sprinkles to help absorb a little of the excess colour. Alternatively you can rub them around with a paper towel to remove some of the colour.
Then once you’ve got all the colours you want, you can mix them together, using as much of each colour as necessary to get the colour blend you want.
To get these colours, these are the gel colours I used:
Yellow ~ Americolor Yellow
Pink ~ Chefmaster Tropical Fuchsia
Peach ~ Americolor peach + tiny bit of Chefmaster Tropical Fuchsia
Teal ~ Americolor Turquoise + Progel Sea Green
The round purple and round blue sprinkles in the above picture are Twinkle Delights Natural 100s and 1000s.
For the jimmies, I also coloured some purple (Americolor Royal Purple + tiny bit of Chefmaster Tropical Fuchsia) some Teal, Yellow, Pink and Peach (all as above).
Now, you might look at this bowl of sprinkles and think “that looks like a lot of sprinkles for one cake”. And you’d be right. I decided to be all mathematical and work out, like, surface area of the cake, then make a sample area of sprinkles to work out how much I’d need to cover 10cm², and then use that to work out how much I needed for the cake. Probably anyone who knows about maths will be all “that’s not what you do”, but bear in mind I got sick as a teenager and basically stopped going to school, so the kidult adult that resulted from those teenage years didn’t trust her own maths and decided to make up 900g of my sprinkle mix, just to make sure there was enough.
Yes, almost a kilo of sprinkles.
And for my 8” cake I used a grand total of. . . 150g.
Yup, that’s all. There may have been an intense fit of giggles when I weighed the remainder to work out how much I’d used. Luckily we had already planned to sprinkle the living daylights out of the party food, so we did use a fair bit more, and no sprinkles ever go to waste ’round here.
A couple of notes before we start:
- I chose not to cover the top of the cake with sprinkles as I did the sides, because I was placing a second tier on top and I didn’t want any sprinkles under the top tier. If you’re just doing a single tier, you can cover the top at the same time.
- You can use real white chocolate instead of candy melts if you prefer. I personally don’t like the taste of candy melts, but I used them purely for the fact that they are white, unlike white chocolate which is slightly yellow. If you want you could also use coloured candy melts, or add oil colouring to your white chocolate, in a colour that compliments or contrasts your sprinkle colours.
- I added a bit of cocoa butter as well as shortening when melting the candy melts. It helps to thin out the candy melts but still allow them to set firm. But if you don’t have cocoa butter then don’t panic (and I wouldn’t bother buying cocoa butter just for this cake, only use it if you already have it) just use a bit more shortening instead. The candy melts may stay a little softer, but it will still work.
- Before you start, have a quick chat with yourself to prepare for the fact that you are gonna have sprinkles all over your kitchen. For
weeksmonthsprobably forever. Even once you think you’ve got them all, they will sneak out from nooks and crannies you never knew existed.
If you’re ok with that, then let’s start.
What you’ll need:
Fondant covered cake
Sprinkles
Setup board
Piece of non-slip/grippy mat slightly smaller than your cake
Waxed paper
Candy melts
Shortening (I used Crisco)
Cocoa butter (optional, see note above)
Spatula
Icing scraper
Piping bag
Fondant smoothers (firm and/or flexible)
Large, rimmed baking tray
Hairdryer with diffuser attachment (optional)
Cover your setup board with waxed paper (tape it underneath the board), place the non-slip mat onto it, and place your cake on top. The waxed paper will stop your cake getting accidentally stuck to the board with the candy melts.
For my 8” cake, I melted 200g of candy melts with 25g of cocoa butter and 1 teaspoon of Crisco. You’re aiming for a thick but spreadable consistency.
Sit your rimmed baking tray onto a turntable. Place the cake, on it’s setup board, into the baking tray, and place your bowl of sprinkles next to it.
This is the part where you need to work quickly, so make sure you have everything that you’ll need nearby before you start.
Spread the candy melts onto the cake using the spatula, then use the icing scraper to scrape it into an even-ish layer. You don’t need to be particularly neat, just make sure that the sides of the cake are totally covered. You’ll see below that mine isn’t very even, I’d have been a bit more careful if I wasn’t also trying to quickly get photos taken before the candy melts set. But you’ll also see later that it doesn’t matter toooo much.
If you’re doing the top of the cake at the same time, then cover that with the candy melts too.
Working quickly, start picking up handfuls of sprinkles and press them against the side of the cake. Spin the turntable as you work, pressing the sprinkles all around the cake. Once you’ve got a lot of sprinkles around the base of the cake, you can kind of scoop and push them up the sides. As you go, you can use a fondant smoother to press the sprinkles into the side of the cake, and keep the sides nice and straight.
If you find there are spots where the candy melts have set and the sprinkles won’t stick, you can re-melt them by using the hairdryer and diffuser attachment. Hold the hairdryer 20-30cm away from the cake on a medium heat setting, just until the candy melts soften and become shiny again. Then quickly press more sprinkles into the gap. (I took this picture before I started putting the sprinkles on, just in case I didn’t have time later. Clearly I didn’t have time to take another one, since I’m using this one.)
If you don’t have a hairdryer, or if you find patches that you’ve missed completely with the candy melts, you can spoon some of the remaining melted candy melt mixture into a piping bag, snip off the tip and pipe it sparingly into the gaps, then press the sprinkles on. Don’t bother using a metal piping tip in the bag as it will cool the candy melts and they’ll harden in the tip. Use the fondant smoother again to make sure the sprinkles stick and are flush with the rest of the sprinkles.
If you haven’t done the top of the cake and you have a lot of candy melts and/or sprinkles sticking up above the top edge, then use a spatula to gently scrape them off so you can keep the sharp top edge.
Wait until the candy melts have fully hardened before you lift the cake off the setup board and move it onto your display board. We had to drive this cake an hour away so I chucked the cake on a centre dowel for safety.
My board was covered in some teal fondant (with a sprinkle of tylose mixed in) and as you can see I’ve already run a bit of double-sided tape around the edge of the board to attach the ribbon later. (Check out my doily cake board tutorial for tips on applying ribbon neatly to a cake board.)
As I mentioned earlier, this was the bottom tier of my cake so I didn’t want to put any sprinkles on the top of the cake until I’d put the watercolour top tier on. To avoid getting candy melts on the top tier, I wrapped some waxed paper around the cake and secured it with a bit of tape.
Also, to make sure you don’t mess up the fondant covered board, use some waxed paper to protect that too. In this case I cut a circle the same size as the cake out of a sheet of waxed paper and pulled that down over the cake, but when I’m feeling properly intelligent, I usually just place a few overlapping strips of waxed paper onto the board before I put the cake on (I dab royal icing or candy melts in the middle of the board around the centre dowel, then place the strips of paper outside of that). Then once I’m done I can just pull the strips out.
Use the piping bag to pipe candy melts onto the top edge of the cake, and use small spatula to spread it evenly, trying to get it right to the edge but don’t let it drip down the sides.
Sprinkle the sprinkles (sorry, I had to say that at least once) along the top of the cake and press them down gently with a fondant smoother. Use your fingers to pinch around the edge of the cake to adhere the sprinkles and keep the edge sharp. Let the candy melts harden completely before brushing off the excess sprinkles. A soft pastry brush or paintbrush can be useful to remove the loose sprinkles without dislodging the attached ones. If you have any gaps, use either the hairdryer or piping bag methods to fill them.
And that’s it, your cake is sprinkled. I topped mine off with a drizzle of chocolate (thanks to Jess of Rosy Cakes for the tips she gave me on choc drizzles, even though mine didn’t turn out anywhere near as good as hers!), the gumpaste name cake topper I had made, and a couple of rock candy sticks.
Happy sprinkling!
~Natalie
xx
Hi, love this cake! How did you achieve the drizzle on top? What ratio of chocolate/candy to cream did you use?
Hi Aisha. I was actually a bit silly when I did the drizzle and used candy melts thinned with some Crisco. I didn’t really thin it down enough and it was quite thick. You don’t see it so well in the pictures, but it didn’t drizzle properly and I ended up having to kind of manoeuvre it down the sides with a toothpick. (That’ll teach me not to cheat!) It did work and look ok, but if I was doing it again I’d stick to the advice I was given and use a proper ganache with choc and cream. 1.5 parts white chocolate to 1 part cream is apparently a good ratio to use. Just test it on some baking paper first to make sure it’s going to set nice and hard and if not, add a bit more chocolate. Hope that helps!
? is this the same ratio for dark chocolate?
Do you mean for a dark chocolate drizzle? If so then I think it would be a good place to start, you may need to adjust it slightly though depending on the type of chocolate and the cocoa butter content of it 🙂
Hi I’m Darby and I’m making my kids bday cake this year. She doesn’t like pink, but I didn’t know if the cake would still look good if I did a blue watercolor and a pink drip. Do you know if it would look good? Thanks
Hi Darby. I think pink and blue always tend to look nice together, so I can’t see any reason why a pink drip on a blue watercolour cake wouldn’t look good. If you really didn’t want to do pink, then a white drip on a blue cake would also look nice. Hope that helps 🙂
hi!!! i am so happy i came across this as i have been stressing about covering a fondant covered cake with sprinkles! great tutorial thank you!! one question though! does using the candy melts change texture/consistency of the fondant or was it as it shoukd be when you finally got to have a slice?! i woukd realllyyyy appreciate a reply!!
thank you xxx
Hi Aneesa. Don’t stress, you’ll be fine! If I can do it, anyone can 😉 The candy melts don’t affect the fondant at all. They don’t have enough moisture to dissolve the fondant, so it just sits on the top and hardens. And when you eat it, it’s just like having a layer of chocolate on the fondant.
Wouldn’t it be easier to attach the sprinkles to a light coating of piping gel brushed on to the fondant? The cake is beautiful!
Thanks Chris! I actually tried a test patch with piping gel the first time I make a sprinkle cake, but I found that in the patches where it didn’t stick first time, it was harder to fill the gaps, and a lot of the gel came off onto the sprinkles that didn’t stick. It also stayed very shiny, so any gaps were more obvious because of the shine. It may depend on the brand of piping gel though I suppose, I think the one I used was Wilton.
Hi! Thanks for the great tutorial! I have a question about the fondant-did you apply the sprinkles right after the cake was covered in fondant, or did you wait for the fondant to dry/harden a bit before applying the sprinkles?
Thanks for your help!
Hi Alex, I left the cake overnight before I applied the sprinkles. I have a habit of accidentally sticking my finger into fondant so I wanted it nice and firm, but even a couple of hours might be enough if you’re not clumsy like me 😉
Thanks Natalie! I’m the same way and usually like to let my fondant set over night too…but I’m debating whether I should try applying the sprinkles when the fondant is still somewhat fresh so I can try to smooth/push the sprinkles into the fondant a bit so they might stay better (I won’t be able to use white chocolate/candy melts, so I’m thinking of using a thin coat of piping gel but worry it won’t hold them in place enough). Do you think smoothing them into fresh fondant will make a difference/help them stay on?
Yep, I think that would work. The only issue with piping gel is that it doesn’t always set, so having the sprinkles pressed into the fondant should help them stick a bit better.
Great tutorial thanks
Do you remember the sizes of the cakes? They look a lot taller then my tins
Hi Rebecca, sorry for my delay in reply. The bottom tier was an 8″ and it was about 4″ high. The top tier was a 6″ and it was about 5″ tall. My cake pans are 3″ tall but I bake them higher and/or bake two, so once I split and fill them I get tall cakes. Hope that helps 🙂
Thank you. My niece asked for a sprinkle cake so I’m going to give it a go.
I loved this tutorial and thank you for making me laugh!! I laughed out loud at the 900g sprinkles to only use 150g… lol that’s sooo something I would do lmao.
I hate maths too. Great tutorial thank you!!!!
Hi Deb. It’s ridiculous, right?! I’ve been trying to use the leftover sprinkles up, I put them on anything that I possibly can. So you know, I probably only have about 800g left 😛
Hi Natalie!
Thanks for the tutorial!
I have a question, did you use a 8×3 or 8×4 inch cake thin?
I like the fact that the top cake (6inch) is so long. is it a double cake?
Sorry, i’m going to bake my very first cake ever!!! Lol
Thanks, mila
Hi Mila. I used an 8″ round, 3″ high cake tin, but I line the cake pan with a strip of baking paper that is higher than the rim of the cake tin, so my cake can rise higher. I baked the cake so it would be about 4″ high, then once I split it and filled it with ganache it was 5″ high. The top tier was a 6″ round and it was 6″ high, so not quite a double height cake but definitely higher than usual. Hope that helps, and best of luck with your cake! Let me know if there’s anything else I can help with 🙂
hi, great cake and looks so yummy, Im about to make a 3 tired wedding cake all done in sprinkles under the sprinkles will be white ganache, I’m a little nervous to say the least about covering the cakes. They will be sitting on top of each other so what is the best way to cover all 3, the sizes are 12 inch, 10 inch and 8 inches, would it be easier for for me to roll the smaller cakes and then get hand fulls of the sprinkles and pat them around the larger cake?
Hi Debbie. I found it too nerve wracking to roll cakes in sprinkles which is why I do it this way, upright in the tray and patting the sprinkles on. You could definitely try rolling it, but there is the risk of the cake slipping as you roll, and if you dent your ganache it will be really tricky to fix it once the cake has sprinkles on it. If you’re nervous then I would suggest doing it this way, as there is less chance of damaging the cake. And anything we can do to minimise the risk of mishaps while making a wedding cake is worth doing, right?! 🙂
Hi
I’m looking to attach the sprinkles to a dummy cake with your method for a display piece and do you know will the sprinkles bleed after time into the chocolate and fondant.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Hi Marcus, the sprinkles shouldn’t bleed into the chocolate, once the chocolate is set there is no moisture to make it bleed. The only issue there could be with a dummy cake is if the air gets a bit humid, then the sprinkles could get a bit sticky. But if it’s kept cool and dry it should be fine. You could also spray it with an edible glaze spray if you want to keep it for a long time. It will make the cake shiny, obviously, but it will help preserve it. Hope that helps 🙂
Amazing! love it! You would suggest using normal buttercream frosting if we have it though? Seems easier? Just using the same technique as the chocolate and just put it right on there??? Thank you!!!
Hi Carrie, thank you! They both have their pros and cons, but yes if you’re doing it with buttercream it is easier to put the sprinkles on as you just push them straight into the buttercream. If you’re using a crusting buttercream, just make sure you press the sprinkles on before it crusts 🙂
Hi.. My name is Aseel
Can you please give me the receip of your cake. And i want to know how you make the light blue drip of the top of cake did you mitl white chocolate and color it ? Thank you in advance ?
Hi Aseel, I’m having trouble remembering but I’m pretty sure this cake was my devil’s food cake recipe. And yes I melted white chocolate and cream together and added blue and green candy colouring to it, to make the turquoise-y colour. If you want some tips for doing the chocolate drizzle, have a look at my Mini Cake Tutorial, that’s how I do the drizzle. Hope that helps 🙂
Hi, would 150 grams of sparkling silver sugar be enough to cover top and sides of a 2 layer 9″ round cake about 6″ total height?
Many thanks
Judy
Hi Judy, my guess is that it would probably be enough, however I can’t tell you for sure as I haven’t done it with sparkling sugar myself. But I always say it’s better to buy more than you think you need and have some leftover than not have enough! 🙂
Hi.
I’m making my friends wedding cake, i will be covering the cake with buttercream and decorating with sprinkles, my question is can i put the srinkles on the day before the wedding? Will the colour in the sprinkles run?
Hi Natasha. It might depend on the specific sprinkles you use, but no, the colour shouldn’t bleed. If you can avoid putting the cake in the fridge for a long period of time then that will help – if it’s in the fridge and condensation forms on the cake as it comes to room temperature then that could cause the sprinkles to bleed. If you’re really worried, then I’d suggest making up some buttercream, spreading it on a plate and adding some sprinkles, then leave it for a while (putting it in the fridge if that’s what you plan to do with the cake) and see what happens. Then you’ll know for sure. 🙂
Hi, for school we have the opportunity to bake a cake and auction it off the people for weird prices (in the hundreds), the money goes to charity, and my group of friends and i have planned to make this cake. Any pointers on how to make it easier?
Hi Belle, that sounds like a great fundraiser! I’ve done my best to break this technique down into manageable steps in these tutorials, but if there’s anything I can clarify for you then please let me know. If you’re doing it with a group of friends I would suggest dividing the whole project up between you, so each person can work through one part on their own – that way no one will be tripping over each other trying to do the same thing. And if you can then it’s a good idea to do a trial run beforehand, if not for the whole cake then for anything that you’re not familiar with. For instance if you haven’t worked with fondant before then it would be good to try it out first. I hope that helps and if there’s anything else I can help you with, then you know where to find me 🙂
SSSSOOoooo many questions for you .. but first of all.. congrats the cake is amazing.
Can I ask two questions?
1. The top tier is wrapped in paper? with a lovely tone/colour effect to it. How did you achieve that effect.. or was this some special type of paper?
2. What are the dimensions of the cake in total?
M
Hi Maura, you sure can. The top tier is wrapped in fondant and decorated with watercolour effect, you can see the tutorial for that >here< . When I was adding the sprinkles to the top edge of the bottom tier, I wrapped the top tier with waxed paper to protect it from the melted chocolate and sprinkles (and me nudging it with my hand, which inevitably happens. The top tier was a 6″ round cake and it was about 6″ high, and the bottom tier was 8″ and about 5″ high 🙂
I am doing a cake for a wedding and she wants it covered in jimmies. I use buttercream frosting though and no fondant. Do you think I can do this same cake but with buttercream? I am trying to figure out how many jimmies I will need to cover a 9″ the sides of a two layered cake and the edge of the top of it (will have a 6″ cake on top), Any suggestions?
Hi Wanda, yes you can do the same thing with buttercream, if it’s a crusting buttercream then you will need to apply the sprinkles as soon as you’ve applied the buttercream, if it’s a non-crusting buttercream like a meringue buttercream then you can chill the buttercream until it is firm and then apply the sprinkles. As I mentioned in the post I used about 150g of sprinkles for the sides and the top edge of my 8″ cake, so I would guess if you had 200 – 250g of jimmies that should be enough. I can’t say for sure but that would be my best guess. Hope that helps 🙂
Hi Natalie
I would like to do a 12 inch fruit cake with gold colour funfetti sequin sprinkles. Can I attach sprinkles using Royal icing then recoat with gold spray
Thank you in advance
Shaz
Hi Shaz, yes you should be able to do that, just make sure the royal icing is fully dry before you spray it with the gold ?
Hi your tutorials are very good. I have been trying to get a good tutorial on fondant toppers and sprinkle cakes for a while now. Will definitely do this for my daughter’s next birthday! Thanks alot.
Hi,
Nice job on the cake. Is there a reason you couldn’t do a thin layer of buttercream over the fondant instead of the candy melts? Thanks
Hi Kim, you can use buttercream instead if you like 🙂 I used the candy melts because they set firm at room temperature to hold the sprinkles on really securely. Buttercream will stick them but you’ll just have to be a bit more careful with the cake as it’s easier to damage the buttercream than candy melts.
How to store a sprinkled cake? Will it bleed ? Please help.
Hi Greeshma, the cake can be stored at cool room temperature (in air conditioning in hot climates) and no, the sprinkles won’t bleed 🙂