Wow Your Party Guests With This Surprise Sprinkle Cake Technique

Cutting into a cake can be thrilling for many reasons — maybe you enjoy dividing it into perfectly even pieces, perhaps you appreciate the carefully laid layers of cake and ganache, or most simply, you're about to indulge in a delicious and joyful treat. However, slicing this celebratory baked good is even more exciting when a surprise deluge of sprinkles rushes out! When plating that first piece of cake, you can garner many "oohs" and "ahhs" from the crowd with this one simple trick.

To begin, you'll need a cake (duh). Whether you prefer to bake one from scratch or use a boxed mix is up to you, but the height of your cake is what's important. While making a regular sheet cake could work with this trick, putting surprise sprinkles inside a taller cake has a more impressive effect. To do this, you'll need a layered cake of at least three layers — a bottom layer and at least one middle layer for hiding sprinkles, and a complete top layer for frosting. Set aside the top cake, then cut a hole through the center of the bottom and middle layers using a ring cutter or knife, ensuring there is enough cake around the hole to support the top layer. Next, stack all the cake layers except for the top, fill the hole to the rim with sprinkles, stack the top layer, frost, and voilà: ... a surprise sprinkle cake!

Sprinkles have been used to create dazzling cakes, top ice cream, and jazz up other desserts for ages, and now we've seen how to utilize them in a more unique way. But why stop there? What else could we put inside these piñata-like treats? The possibilities are endless and can get rather unexpected.

On the simple side, you could use any type of candy to fill your surprise cake  — gummy worms inside a chocolate dirt cake, candy fish inside a shark cake, or you could even make surprise cupcakes and sort your guests into Hogwarts houses using accordingly-colored M&Ms. This party trick isn't thrilling for just kids either; adults can take part in the excitement by using pastel pink or blue edible pearls for a gender reveal party, chocolate chips for a more sophisticated approach, or peppermint pieces for a holiday get-together.

Or, you could get experimental and try something out of the ordinary, like making a money cake by hiding rolled-up dollar bills inside. This version is a bit more complex, with the person-of-honor pulling the money out of the top of the cake. Regardless of what you fill your cake with — cash, candy, or classic sprinkles — it will make anyone say "wow!"