Put on your jammies and flash back to childhood! It’s early on a Saturday morning and you’re watching cartoons as you shove spoon fulls of colorful pebbles into your mouth, slurping up every last drop of that sugary milky goodnesss as you laugh at the silly coyote who can never seem to catch that crafty roadrunner. Ahh, the days of no responsibility and a metabolism that just won’t quit. 😉😅

I made this cake for my awesome friend Kristy. I wanted to make something that was just as sweet and fun as she is. As I was searching, I stumbled upon this cake. A breakfast cereal-infused vanilla cake, iced with a creamy milk-infused buttercream and sprinkled with colorful fruity pebbles. How fun, it sounded perfect! It did call for fruit loops, but I omitted these because the author said they turned stale after sitting (yucks), so I replaced them with rainbow sprinkles.

Ok, let’s put on our jammies, turn on some cartoons, and start baking!

Preheat your oven to 355 degrees F. I used four 6 inch cake pans. Cut out parchment rounds, spray some oil in the pan, then place the parchment on top and set aside.

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Cereal milk time!! Measure out the milk, pour into a jar, then add cornflakes and give it a nice stir to thoroughly coat and submerge the flakes. Let sit for 10 minutes to let it get nice and soggy.

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Sift the flour (I used super-fine cake flour, but you can sub for all-purpose). Then try to take an action shot of you sifting and make a mess…

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In the bowl of a stand mixer, add flour, baking powder, caster sugar and salt. Mix on low speed for a few minutes, until the dry ingredients are well combined.

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Add in softened butter one tablespoon at a time. The mixture should resemble a fine sand like texture.

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Next, add in wet ingredients. Pour in cereal milk, olive oil, greek yogurt, eggs, and vanilla extract. Mix on medium speed until the ingredients are thoroughly combined. Scrape down bowl as needed.

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Remove bowl from stand mixer and fold in rainbow sprinkles.

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Fill cake pans with batter, trying to equally distribute the batter between the pans. Feel free to weigh each pan, but I just eye balled it. Slide the pans into the preheated oven and bake for 40-45 minutes, until a toothpick comes out of the middle clean.

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While the cake is baking, let’s work on the frosting! First, make a batch of Swiss meringue buttercream frosting.

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Now for the “milk” addition. Place boiling water in a mixing bowl and add in milk powder, one teaspoon at a time, until half of the powder has been added, then dump the rest in and continue mixing until a smooth paste forms.

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Scoop out one forth of the frosting into the mixing bowl with the milk paste, and use whisk attachment to mix on high speed for about 5 minutes, until it is combined well and smooth. Scrap down the bowl as needed, then add in the rest of the frosting and mix again.

The picture on the left is my second go at this frosting, the one on the right was my first round. It was a little lumpy because the meringue was a bit too warm and melted the butter a little. Oops. I ended up using the first batch for the in between layers, and the second batch for the finishing layer.

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Ok, let’s switch gears and get the cakes ready to be layered! You will need to level the cakes, I did this by inserting a toothpick for a guide and using a serrated knife to cut the tops off.

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Now to layer up! Start off by placing down your cardboard cake round on whatever you plan on serving the plate on. Place a dollop of icing on the cardboard, then your first cake layer. Top with a generous layer of icing, then repeat with remaining layers. After you are finished layering, fill in the hole and spread the icing all around the outside of the cake with a flat spatula or bench scraper. Don’t worry about covering it completely, this is just the “glue” and “crumb covering” layer. After you are done, place it in the frig for a few hours, or overnight, which is what I did.

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Now for the finishing touches! I whipped up a fresh batch of icing and put another layer on to fill in the gaps and completely cover the cake. I also made some dollops on top. Let the cake chill in the frig for a couple of hours.

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Time to bust out the fruity pebbles and fling on the cake! I made a mess, but it was fun. I also topped the cake with adorable silly panda bears.

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I was going to add some orange gelatin “bubbles,” but I didn’t have everything I needed and tried to improvise with little finger condoms instead of water balloons, and failed miserably. They were hard to tie and ended up deflating, plus I should have stuck the sticks in styrofoam so they could sit vertically and drip down, not off the side. It looked like I was off to a decent start…

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However, after sitting overnight to harden, they also deflated and turned out like this…

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Oops. There was an attempt. 🙃 I am totally trying this again one day, and getting balloons I can properly tie and a block of styrofoam!