Easy Easter Cake Recipe

This easy Easter cake recipe is perfect for your Easter holiday table. With its beautiful pastel layers in classic Easter colors and just the right amount of frosting, this pastel layer cake is one that even first time bakers can master.

Cake is a classic dessert that we love making it for almost any occasion. For Easter, we love making this pastel layer cake because it's so good, easy to make, and perfectly fits the holiday.

This was inspired by my bright fun rainbow colored cake recipe. As I was making it for a baby shower, I realized that with just a little tweaking it would make the perfect Easter cake.

If you're looking for more spring inspired recipes to bake for the holiday, you're going to love these Sugar Cookie Blossoms, Easter Chocolate Covered Oreos, and Easter Hot Cocoa Bombs.

Why You Will Love This Recipe

• It only uses a few basic baking ingredients.
• It's completely homemade but so easy to make.
• The gentle pastel Spring colors are perfect for the season.
• Everyone loves cake with buttercream frosting!

Ingredients

You'll only need a few basic baking ingredients to make this recipe. Most of them are probably in your kitchen right now, in fact!

The ingredients that give this cake its great flavor and colors are here, but you'll find the complete list of ingredients along with amounts in the recipe card at the end of the post.

• Butter: Unsalted butter adds rich flavor, and moistness to the cake. Salted butter makes up the base of the creamy buttercream frosting.
• Sugar: Simple white sugar will make the batter a light color that will work best with the food coloring.
• Vanilla: Adds depth of flavor to the cake and frosting.
• Whole milk: Adds moisture to the cake but also thins out the buttercream frosting.
• Food color: Use pink, green, yellow, and blue gel food coloring. Gel food coloring is the best for achieving great color without affecting the consistency of the cake.
• Sprinkles: One of the easiest Easter cake decoration ideas! Keep it simple with some pastel sprinkles or choose something more elaborate.

Substitutions

Missing an ingredient? Here are some ideas of things we've experimented with when making this easy Easter cake recipe.

• Frosting: Skip the homemade buttercream and use your favorite store bought frosting in any flavor instead.
• Vanilla extract: For the cake or frosting, use peppermint, coconut, banana, almond, rum, or maple extract to alter the flavor of the cake a bit.
• Gluten-free flour: Swap the all-purpose flour for your favorite 1-to-1 gluten-free flour.
• Food coloring: Use your favorite colors but make sure to use gel food coloring for the best results.
• Salted butter: Use unsalted butter plus one-quarter teaspoon of salt to replace the salted butter for the frosting.

Variations

Want to change it up a bit? Here are some ideas for inspiration.

• Prefer butter and cream cheese frosting? Add an 8 oz brick of softened cream cheese to the frosting mixture while blending.
• Love citrus flavor? Use orange juice instead of milk in the cake batter for a subtle hint of citrus flavor. Boost the citrus by adding some citrus zest or juice to your frosting as well.
• For an extra moist cake, simply fold a tablespoon or two of sour cream into your batter before baking.

Easter Cake Decoration Ideas

• Make thicker layers. Instead of four layers and four 9-inch round cake pans use two 9 x 13-inch cake pans instead. You can make two different color or simply stick with one pastel color instead.
• Add more layers: Instead of only four layers make two batches of round cakes and make a seven-layered cake or eight-layered cake instead, using each color twice or totally different colors in each cake pan.
• Decorations: Consider adding some edible decorations like jelly beans, gummy worms, mini marshmallows, mini chocolate chips, dried fruits, edible flowers, mini chocolates like Turtles, or mini Easter eggs on top of the cake.
• Color your frosting: You can also add food coloring to tint the frosting as well.

How to Make This Simple Easter Cake

This recipe is fully homemade, but it's not hard to make. It's just a basic cake and frosting recipe with some food coloring added.

The overview is here, but you'll find the exact instructions in the recipe card at the end of the post.

1. Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
2. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat again.

3. Add the flour, baking powder, and salt and beat the cake batter again.
4. Add the milk while beating.

5. Divide the batter into four equal portions.
6. Color each one with different colored food coloring gel.

7. Transfer each different colored batter to a prepared pan.
8. Bake each cake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool for 15 minutes, then flip out onto parchment paper and cool completely.

TOP TIP: Allow cakes to totally cool for 15 minutes prior to flipping them onto parchment paper. The cakes must cool completely.

9. Combine the butter and powdered sugar for the frosting.
10. Add vanilla and milk to the bowl and beat until smooth and creamy.

11. Frost between each layer of cake.
12. Top the cake with more frosting and sprinkles.

13. Serve up this Easter birthday cake or easy Easter cake at the end of your Easter holiday dinner.

TOP TIP: Chill finished cakes in the fridge for 20 minutes once decorated to help everything set into place prior to serving

Storage

Room Temperature: Store this in an airtight cake container in a cool place at room temperature for up to 3 days for the best flavor and texture.

Refrigerator: Store in a covered container for up to a week.

Freezer: Place the cake in the freezer without any covering to free until it's hard. Then, wrap tightly in a double layer of plastic wrap and another layer of foil. Store for up to 3 months.

Make Ahead: You can make the layers of this cake in advance and store in the freezer for up to three months. Then when you're ready to assemble the cake, thaw them out on the counter, make the frosting and finish preparing the cake.

MAKE AHEAD TIP: While the cake is still warm, wrap each layer with plastic wrap, then a layer of aluminum foil, and put them in the freezer. The water created by the cake's residual heat will keep it moist (but not too moist) in the freezer.

What to Serve with Easter Cake

This delicious cake makes the perfect dessert to add to your Easter spread. Serve it alongside other favorite Easter desserts on your dessert table.

Some of our favorites include:

• Easter Candy Apples
• Easter Chocolate Covered Oreos
• Mini Easter Cheesecakes
• Easter Fudge
• Cadbury Egg Cookies

Tips

• Use room temperature ingredients. Room temperature eggs and butter make mixing them into the batter or frosting much easier and with better results.
• Using a stand mixer? Be sure to use the paddle attachment and beat on low-medium speed to ensure that all ingredients are evenly incorporated and not over mixed.
• The cakes must be fully cool before frosting and assembling the cake. Otherwise, the frosting will melt away and the cake layers won't stay together.
• Don't over mix after combining the wet and dry ingredients together. Use low speed and mix only to combine everything.
• Grease the cake pans thoroughly before adding batter to avoid sticking.
• Use separate bowls and spoons or whisks when mixing each color of batter to prevent colors from blending together.
• Filling the pans. Only fill them up three-quarters of the way and make sure the batter in each pan is as even as possible to get even layers that are stackable.
• Don’t add too much frosting to your cake. Consider the cake-to-frosting ratio. Some cake layers are thicker or thinner than others and require a different amount of frosting so don't add too much.

FAQ

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