Funfetti Pound Cake

If you're in the mood for a festive, fun cake or just want to celebrate...well crazy life, then give this colourful funfetti pound cake a try! It's a rich, very moist cake with tiny colourful sprinkles throughout it. Topped with an easy marshmallow frosting and even more sprinkly goodness it will make anyone's day! I called her April.

Pound cake is a simple cake to make. To make a pound cake you start with a pound of butter (yes this isn't a diet cake) and add a simple mix of sugar, eggs, flour, milk and vanilla. And to make it funfetti just add a bit of sparkle with sprinkles and then bake it.

American style pound cakes (of which this is a variation) originally had 1 pound of butter, flour, sugar and eggs but generally you don't really need that much sugar or eggs for it to get that signature pound cake texture. Even if you reduce the sugar and eggs you still get a wonderfully moist cake that stays that way for days. And the funfetti version? Well that's pure whimsy and fun but if you are not feeling the funfetti, omit the sprinkles. But you won't be a unicorn then (just sayin' ;) ).

We recently had a really fun time at an escape room for Mr NQN's birthday with Louise and Viggo (alas Nina and Garth were overseas). I was very excited because even though it was Mr NQN's birthday I picked the escape room and it was about serial killers, one of my favourite topics.

The main aim of the escape room was to guess the name of the serial killer and once we had the name we would be able to escape. It was down to the last 2 minutes in the 60 we were given and we were scrambling to make sense of the letters in front of us.

The name started to look familiar. E-LL-I-O-TT it read and then it spelled our Mr NQN's first name as the serial killer! I had completely forgotten that I had ticked the drop down box about a special occasion and given his name. Mr NQN's face lit up at this unexpectedly fun twist in the game and this would probably be the only time that he would ever be chuffed to be named as a serial killer too! :D

So tell me Dear Reader, would you prefer the regular pound cake or the funfetti version? Do you have a fascination with serial killers too?

Funfetti Pound Cake

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 1 hour 10 minutes

• 454g/1lb butter, softened
• 2 cups caster or superfine sugar
• 6 eggs
• 3 cups cake flour*
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup sprinkles plus 1/4 cup to line the tin
• Olive oil spray
• 3xXL American campfire marshmallows or 2/3 cup regular Australian sized ones
• 1/2 cup fancy sprinkles to decorate

Step 1 - Preheat oven to 150C/300F and line a deep loaf tin on the base and sides with parchment. Beat the butter until very light and fluffy-you want to whip it til it's white-this can take up to 5-6 minutes. Then add sugar and beat for another 2 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time beating well after each addition. Fold in the flour, buttermilk, vanilla and 1/2 cup of sprinkles until just combined.

Step 2 - Take the tin and spray the insides with spray. Gently distribute the sprinkles on the base and sides of the tin. Spoon the funfetti batter into the tin and add more sprinkles on top. Bake for 1 hour, 10 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes and then remove from tin gently and cool on a rack.

Step 3 - Microwave marshmallows in a large bowl for 30 seconds. Immediately spoon on top of the cake and smooth using an angled spatula. Top with fancy sprinkles.