Polka Dotted Cake

Happy 5 Year Anniversary to With Sprinkles on Top! I can’t believe I’ve been doing this for 5 years. I started my blog in 2008 while living in Chicago. Five years later, I’m living in Milwaukee, going through law school, and continuing to bake every chance I get. I wanted to make something a little ridiculous for this post — and I decided a polka dotted cake would fit the bill. This cake is not as difficult as it looks. Trust me! You just need a lot of things in order to pull it off — and a lot of time. I think this would be a PERFECT cake for a kid’s birthday party or a baby shower – as you could make the dots any colors you’d like.

Thank you all for a fun five years of blogging!

Polka Dotted Cake
Inspired by: Once Upon a Pedestal
Print Recipe

For the cake balls, you will need:
1 box white cake mix
3 whole eggs
Vegetable oil (go with the amount required on the box recipe)
Milk (substitute milk for the amount of water required on the box recipe)
1 box vanilla instant pudding
A cake pop maker – I highly recommend this one – it is amazing and makes perfect cake pops/balls; and it’s easy!
Various food colorings

For the cake, you will need:
2 boxes white cake mix (plus required eggs + oil)
[no need for substitutions on this one — just make a regular cake mix according to the box directions]
6″ cake pan(s)
Buttercream icing
Decorative sprinkles (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Mix all of the cake ball ingredients listed above together. The substitutions work really well — it will produce a denser cake.
3. Divide the batter into small bowls and dye with food coloring. I used red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. You can use any colors you’d like.
4. I used the cake pop maker linked above. If you use that one, spray both the bottom and top pan with nonstick spray (use one that contains flour – I used Pam baking spray).
5. Pour the batter into the bottom pan (the pan without the holes).

6. Place the top pan onto the bottom pan and secure with the clips provided. Bake at 350F for about 15 minutes. The instructions that come with the cake pop pan will tell you to bake for almost 30 minutes. Not necessary! Mine were done in 15.
7. When the pan comes out of the oven, it will look like this:

8. Don’t worry! Just cut off the overflowing blobs of cake. Once you do that, it’ll look like this:

9. Separate the pans and remove the cake balls to a wire rack for complete cooling.

10. Aren’t they pretty? While the cake balls are cooling, make the white batter for the rest of the cake. I made a white box mix and did not make any substitutions, unlike the cake balls. I had 2 white cake mixes on hand for this – just to be sure that I’d have enough batter to make a three-layer cake.
11. Once the cake balls have cooled, it’s time to make the cakes! Spray a 6″ cake pan with non-stick spray. Place a generous spoonful of white cake batter into the pan and spread the batter to cover the bottom of the pan.
12. Place 4 cake balls into the pan. Cover the cake balls with more white batter. It’ll look like this:

13. Bake for about 30 minutes at 350F. It may take you more or less time — so watch the oven! Stick a tester into the middle of the cake, if it comes out clean, you’re good to go.
14. Allow the cake to cool thoroughly on a wire rack.
15. Repeat this process to make two more cake layers. While the cakes are cooling, make a batch of buttercream icing. I used the white buttercream icing here.
16. Once the layers are cooled, assemble and frost the cake as you would any other. Tip: be sure to keep track of where the cake balls are so when you cut through the cake, you’ll hit them. I stuck toothpicks into the side of the cake where I knew the cake balls were sitting. Do whatever works for you.
17. Decorate with sprinkles if you’d like. That’s it! See, it wasn’t so difficult… just time consuming!