gender reveal piñata cake

Do you have a gender reveal party or baby shower coming up? This Piñata Cake is the perfect way to celebrate! When you cut into it... pink or blue candy will come pouring out!

YOU GUYS. I am SO pumped to be sharing this cake with y'all today! There is such a sweet story behind it. Not to mention, this is probably one of my most favorite cakes that I've ever made! This Gender Reveal Piñata Cake is a super fun, unexpected way to do a gender reveal! Everyone expects colored frosting on the inside... but nobody expects blue or pink candy to come pouring out when you cut a slice! SO. MUCH. FUN. This was a total surprise to everyone and I can't decide what I loved more - the cascade of candy or everyone's face of complete surprise!

Okay, so part of the reason that I love this piñata cake so much is that this was a personal order! NOT FOR ME, mind you. I am in the middle of PA school. Ain't nobody got time for babies right now. But a couple of my professors schemed with me to surprise another of my professors with a baby shower cake! They just gave me a date and said, we don't care what it looks like, you can decide, we're sure you'll do a great job! WELL. Y'all know me. I take "creative freedom" very... seriously? If that's what we wanna call it. What I'm trying to say is, don't give me total creative freedom and then be surprised when 1.25 lbs of Sixlets pour out of your cake when you cut into it. I AM the baking fairy for a reason. ?

How does one make a piñata cake? Well, I'm very glad you asked! It's actually a lot easier than you would think! So I baked up FOUR layers of confetti cake in 8-inch pans. I then cut the center out of two of them. Then on my cake board, I placed a whole cake layer, and topped it with frosting and my two carved cakes. I decided to coat the inside of my cavity with frosting just for a little more stability, but I think you could also skip it if you wanted! I just felt like I made my cut-outs pretty big and I definitely didn't want the cake to collapse. And then of course I filled it with candy!

Did y'all know Party City sells 40oz containers of color-coded candy? Because... they do. Just in case you need that much candy for something. 😉 Which of course normal people don't. BUT, we've already established that food blogging makes you do a lot of non-normal people things so honestly I've just resigned myself to it. Below, I'll be sharing the recipe I used but you can definitely just use this as inspiration and make a piñata cake with whatever flavor you'd like! I went with a vanilla-almond confetti cake with vanilla-almond buttercream, but the sky is the limit! I hope you'll try your hand at making this adorable piñata cake next time you have a special occasion. Happy baking! 🙂

Excuse the iPhone quality pic but... of course I had to share a picture of the inside! This was so fun!

Looking for more gender reveal treats? Check out my Simple Gender Reveal Cupcakes and my Cupcake or Stud-Muffin Gender Reveal Cake.

I bought my cake topper from Hobby Lobby!

Print Recipe

gender reveal piñata cake

Prep Time2 hours hrs

Cook Time30 minutes mins

Total Time2 hours hrs 30 minutes mins

Course: Cakes

Servings: 30

Author: Valentina | The Baking Fairy

Ingredients

• *for the cake*
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 3 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ cup {1 stick} unsalted butter at room temp
• 4 eggs
• ⅔ cup sour cream
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoon vanilla extract
• ½ tablespoon almond extract
• 1 ⅓ cups whole milk
• ½ cup sprinkles
• 20 oz candy for filling
• *for the frosting*
• 1 ½ cups {3 sticks} unsalted butter at room temp
• 6 cups powdered sugar
• ¼-1/2 cup heavy cream {more or less as needed}
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• pinch of salt
• food coloring as desired

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350F, and spray four 8inch pans with baking nonstick spray (or you can butter & flour them).
• In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar. Add in the butter, and beat on low until it's incorporated and has a sandy texture.
• In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, eggs, sour cream, vanilla and almond extract, and add them to the dry ingredients. Mix until combined.
• Pour in the milk, and beat on medium-low until smooth and creamy. Finally, gently stir in the sprinkles.
• Divide the batter evenly between the four pans, and bake for 22-25 min, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean {the top may still appear very white, that's okay!}
• Let cakes cool completely before handling {I like to refrigerate for a few hours!}. When cool and solidified, choose two cakes out of the bunch and cut out the center, leaving at least 2" around for the rim.
• Now you can make the frosting.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the butter and salt, and vanilla and almond extracts. Beat until combined, then slowly add in the powdered sugar, a cup at a time.
• Then, slowly drizzle in the heavy cream or milk until it's your desired stiffness. You might not need it all!
• Take out about ⅔ cups of frosting, and place ⅓ each in two separate bowls. Color one bowl pink and one bowl blue for decorating.
• Place a dollop of white frosting onto your cake board or plate, and place one of the whole cakes on top. Cover the surface with frosting, then top with one of the cut out cakes, add more frosting, and place the other cut out cake on top. If desired, frost the inside of the cavity with a small spatula.
• Fill the cake cavity with candy, making sure to fill it to the brim so the top cake will not collapse in the middle.
• Slather frosting around the top of the cut out cake, and finally top with the remaining whole cake.
• Frost the entire cake with a crumb coat, and let chill in the refrigerator until set.
• When set, you can do a prettier "clean" layer of frosting on top of the crumb coat. Make sure it's completely chilled and solid before adding on the ganache.
• To make the ganache, combine the chocolate, cream, and corn syrup in a microwave-safe bowl. Heat in 15 sec increments until smooth and creamy. Let cool slightly, then place in a ziplock baggie or a squeeze bottle, and decorate as desired. Let the cake cool in the refrigerator again if you want to decorate the top with more frosting.
• When the chocolate is solid, you can decorate the top! I used a 1M tip, a 21, and a 4B. Decorate as desired. Serve immediately or refrigerate until needed!