Oreo Confetti Cake
One of my most popular recipes - try this Oreo Confetti Cake! Delicious Oreo cake layers with cream cheese frosting and a fun confetti flair!
Equipment
- 1 10 inch cardboard cake circle (or 8-inch; I prefer Wilton’s center-punched circles)
- Squeeze bottle (for ganache drip; I prefer bottles but you can use a piping bag or a spoon)
- large piping bag + star tip (linked is a set I use more than any of my others!)
Ingredients
Oreo Confetti Cake Layers
- 3 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 3 cups granulated sugar
- 2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter (or 2 sticks, room temperature)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 5 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups buttermilk (room temperature)
- 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
- 12 regular Oreo Cookies (crushed; stir in at the very end)
- ½ cup Rainbow jimmies sprinkles (NOT nonpareils; the color will dissolve and turn the cake brown! Stir in at the very end)
Oreo Confetti Frosting:
- 8 ounces cream cheese (or 1 package, softened)
- 16 Tablespoons two sticks butter, softened (or 2 sticks, softened)
- 6-7 cups confectioner's sugar
- 2-4 Tablespoons milk
- 1 Tablespoon clear vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon sea salt if using unsalted butter
- 6-8 Oreos crushed (stir in at the very end)
- 1/2 cup rainbow jimmies NOT nonpareils; the color will dissolve and turn the frosting brown! Stir in at the very end
Decorations
- 6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips (1 cup)
- 6 ounces heavy whipping cream (3/4 cup)
- 12 regular Oreo cookies (8 whole & 4 crushed – for decorating)
- ¼ cup Rainbow jimmies sprinkles (for decorating)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Prepare pans baker’s floured cooking spray, or grease and line with parchment rounds.
- Mix together all dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt) in a stand mixer with a paddle until fully combined.
- Mix chunks of room-temperature butter slowly into the dry mix, on a low speed. Continue to mix until no large chunks of butter remain, and the mix becomes crumbly.
- Pour in eggs and mix on low until just incorporated. Mix in the buttermilk. Add in vanilla and oil, and mix at a low speed until fully incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula, then beat on medium speed for about 30 seconds. Stir in crushed oreos and rainbow jimmies – the I stirred as little as possible after this point, to keep the Oreo crumbs from turning my cake layers brown!
- Divide batter evenly between the prepared cake pans (I find a kitchen scale helpful for this part). This guarantees your layers will bake to be the same height.
- Bake for 35-37 minutes (or until a toothpick comes out clean). Allow cake layers to cool for 10-15 minutes on a wire cooling rack before removing from pans. Cool completely before frosting. Set in the fridge or freezer to accelerate the cooling process if desired.
- Once the layers have fully cooled, the caramelized bits can be trimmed from the sides / top of the cake using a serrated knife if desired. Be sure the layers are completely cooled or chilled before trimming. If you try to trim the layers while they’re still warm, they will crumble and break. This is a great time to make your frosting!
Frosting
- Beat together softened cream cheese and butter; slowly add in powdered sugar alternating with milk until frosting reaches desired consistency. Add vanilla and salt if needed and beat until well combined.
- You’ll see in the video my crumb-coat layers was much darker brown than the outer frosting layer – I over-stirred some frosting and turned the color too brown, so I had to make more for the outer layer. Stir as little as possible to keep your frosting light in color!
- Once your cakes are cool, level them (if needed). This can be done with a cake leveler or a large serrated knife and a ruler. Place a smear of frosting on your cake circle (to keep the cake from sliding while you decorate it) and center your first cake layer in the center of the circle. Spread the layer with frosting. Repeat the process with your remaining cake layers.
- Now you're ready to crumb-coat . If you're unfamiliar with crumb-coating, it's just what it sounds like – spreading a thin layer of frosting over the entire outside of the cake to keep crumbs out of your final layer. I usually do this with my large offset spatula.
- Once your crumb coat has set (this takes about 5-10 minutes in the fridge), add your final layer of frosting and smooth. I like to use an offset spatula and bench scraper for this part. As I worked through this part I had to pull out a few larger Oreo chunks that were getting in the way of smoothing my frosting. Fill in the holes with a bit of extra frosting and keep smoothing.
- Once your sides are smooth, set the cake in the fridge or freezer for 10-15 minutes to set the frosting and chill the cake so your ganache drip will set.
Chocolate ganache drip:
- Meanwhile, make your ganache. Place chocolate chips in a heat-proof bowl. Add whipping cream and microwave on half power in 30-second intervals, stirring in between until smooth.
- When your ganache has cooled– it should feel only slightly warm and still be fairly liquid – transfer it to a squeeze bottle or piping bag. A spoon will work if you don’t have either of those, I've just found spoons to be a little bit more difficult to work with.
- Slowly drizzle ganache around the upper edge of your cake, pausing every inch or so to let more ganache fall in a drip down the side of the cake. Return cake to the fridge or freezer to set the drips.
- Transfer remaining frosting to a piping bag fitted with a star tip, and pipe several large frosting swirls to the top rim of the cake – I used my largest most-open star for this, so the Oreo chunks wouldn’t clog the piping tip.
- Space Oreo cookies in between the frosting swirls, add some crushed Oreos and sprinkles to the tip and base rim of the cake – and you’re done! Enjoy!
Video
Notes
Please note nutrition information is an estimate and may not be exactly accurate.
Nutrition
Serving: 1sliceCalories: 756kcalCarbohydrates: 103gProtein: 8gFat: 39g
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I m doubtful of 6-7 c sugar
How much is that??
I do actually use that much! I make my frosting fairly stiff so it holds its shape. I’ve never measured icing sugar in grams, but the cups to grams converter I’ve used before says 130 grams per cup, so around 780 grams?
Twosugarbugs.com has an amazing swiss meringue buttercream recipe that would work for this cake if you’d rather not use a buttercream-style icing because they do tend to be pretty sweet!
Just wanted to let you know I made this cake for my son’s 13th birthday today and it was AMAZING. Nothing else. Amazing. The cake was moist, the frosting sweet and yes it was a bit much with how sweet it was BUT we just sliced pieces thin and enjoyed it still. I followed the recipe to the “T” and it was perfect. I actually baked the caked the night before the party and let cool completely overnight and still was beautifully delicious. Thank you for sharing this recipe. I will be making it again! Also I wish there was a way I could share pics. Let me know if you know how. I’d love to share them
Thank you so much!! 🙂 Oreo confetti definitely packs a punch in the sweet department, but I love it! Glad you enjoyed it! I don’t know of a way to attach pictures to post comments, but if you have a Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest account ‘Intensive Cake Unit’ should pull up my accounts and pictures can be posted there. Thank you so much for your comments! <3
Are there any adjustments for high altitude?
I’ve not personally done much baking at altitude, so I can’t speak from experience – but this article has a good overview of what things to look at changing if you’re over 3,000 feet of elevation! https://www.allrecipes.com/article/high-altitude-cake-baking/
Is it 6-7 C sugar or powdered sugar?
Powdered sugar! granulated sugar will make grainy frosting. :/
I am truly not trying to be a “Debbie Downer,” but, while the cake is truly beautiful, the frosting is so sickeningly sweet, it ruins the cake. I made this for my daughter’s
birthday a few days ago and everyone in my family agreed that it actually make them all feel sick. So, we are left with 3/4 of a cake that no one wants to eat – I assure you this is definitely a problem we’ve NEVER encountered. The actual cake is delicious on it’s own and I feel it would be better with a slightly sweet whipped cream frosting that would allow the true flavor of the scrumptious cake to come through. Again, I am not trying to be too critical, just sharing in hopes that it might save someone the time and trouble of making the full cake as presented here and having the same issue we did.
Sorry that was your experience! Even tempered with cream cheese, buttercream frostings still run pretty sweet as a whole and that’s not everyone’s thing. 🙂 As a clarifier, make sure you’re lightly filling your measuring cup with powdered sugar and not packing it when you’re measuring.
Whipped cream frosting sounds amazing, or I have several friends that love Swiss meringue buttercreams (like this recipe – https://livforcake.com/swiss-meringue-buttercream-recipe/) because they uses meringue as a base and call for much less sugar. Again, sorry you didn’t like the frosting and thanks for the feedback!
Can I dye the frosting?
I don’t see why not! It might make the confetti a bit harder to see, but it won’t hurt anything! I’d recommend dying your frosting before you stir in the Oreo crumbs though; over-mixing in Oreo pieces will turn your frosting brown.
If you do, send me a picture so I can see how it turned out! 🙂
This cake turned out great! I followed the recipe to a T and it was delicious! I used 8 inch cake pans and cooked them 37 minutes. Everyone at the birthday party loved it and I will defiantly make it again. Thanks so much for the recipe.
This comment made my day! Thank you so much for letting me know; glad everyone loved it!
Can the base layers of the cake be made day prior and frozen? Also once cake is made. Is it best to keep in fridge or at room temp?
Going to attempt to make this, this weekend for my Oreo loving partner 🙂
Aw, I’m soo sorry I didn’t catch your comment before the weekend! Was working a string of 12-hour shifts, and 8 months pregnant means all I do is work and sleep in those stretches. :/ YES, they can be made ahead of time! Just make sure to thaw enough before decorating that you don’t end up with water condensation on your frosting because that’ll keep your cake drip and sprinkles from sticking as well.
You can do either! I like storing cakes overnight in the fridge just for temperature control/stability, but I usually leave them at room temperature at least 2-3 hours ahead of serving just so the frosting isn’t too stiff.
This cake turned out amazing! It was probably the best-tasting vanilla cake I’ve ever had, and the flavor combo of the icing and ganache was to die for. I made it for a birthday party, and everybody was raving about how delicious it was. The only alteration I made was using 4 cups of powdered sugar for the frosting, and to me it had the perfect amount of sweetness. Thank you for this recipe!
So glad you liked it!
This may be a silly question. But I’m making the cake ahead of time for a party this weekend. Should it be refrigerated until then due to the cream cheese?
I’ve left cakes with this frosting at room temperature for a day or two and they’ve been just fine, but you definitely have nothing to lose by refrigerating until an hour or two before you’re ready to serve! I think you’re probably okay either way, but it never hurts to play it safe. 😉
Also we live in S.E. idaho and I didn’t have any issues with altitude. I don’t know if we are actually considered “high” altitude but wanted to share tha also
First, nurses rock! Second, this cake was wonderful! I used the cake and ganache recipe. Used the Swiss meringue buttercream that you linked. In between three 8″ cakes I added the Oreo frosting. 4 cups of powdered sugar for the Oreo frosting was just the right amount of sweetness for us. The cakes took 40 minutes at 350F for me. I was slightly intimidated by the SMBC icing, but got it to work the first go around. I tinted it blue. I wish I could send you a pic. It was such a great cake! Thank you so much for the recipe 🙂