It is now apparently my mission to take every beige recipe and fill it with rainbow sprinkles. Take, for example, a simple snacking cake with cream cheese frosting — confetti-fied. Sugar cookies — confetti-fied. What’s next? Sourdough? I firmly believe that when a recipe becomes confetti-fied, it transcends into more than just sugar, butter, flour, sprinkles; more the sum of its parts. The waxy, sugary specks give off a distinct flavor and texture that I would know even if you blindfolded me. I got so excited about creating this confetti crumb-cake that I totally moved my developing schedule around (which happens a lot) to make it right away.

A note on sprinkles. If you want to use natural sprinkles for whatever reason, feel free. Just know that, in my experience, they don’t show up as bright when baked. (Neither do pastel colors.) Rainbow nonpareils (the teeny tiny spherical sprinkles) are not a great candidate for mixing into confetti cookies or cakes, as they shed their colorful coatings which then mixes into a spectrum of sludge in the dough. The waxiness of normal rainbow sprinkles helps them hold onto their color in the oven. However, I did top a few batches with nonpareils because I liked the look. If you don’t want to use sprinkles at all, leave them out! I won’t cry.

I tried to emulate a “New York”-style crumb cake here — meaning the layer of crumb topping is veering dangerously close to becoming thicker than the layer of cake. Some of us like a lot of crumble! This recipes uses the reverse creaming method, which helps the cake rise evenly and contributes to the ultimate plush, tender crumb. This does mean that you’ll need a stand mixer, but you could use a hand mixer in a pinch.

Confetti Crumb Cake

Makes one 9x13-inch cake, about 20 servings

Ingredients

Cake