The dot cake craze is real. In case you somehow missed the hype, this spring, social media has been flooded with influencers and foodies showing off the latest trending sweet treat: a single-serving cake in a cup, topped with round, multicolored sprinkles. It’s cute, it’s whimsical, and — perhaps most importantly for college students on a budget — it’s a recipe you can DIY at home.
The dot cake trend can be traced back to a company called The Dotcakes, a New York-based bakery that makes custom-designed, sprinkle-topped cakes. Its individual-sized cake product, Dotcups, started going viral thanks in large part to New York City creators posting about them, with many getting the Dotcups from the influencer-loved NYC grocery store Butterfield Market.
Yes, this food trend is a bit controversial (but like, in a pretty low-key way, thank goodness). While the mini cakes are clearly aesthetically pleasing (the colorful sprinkles are seriously adorable), many commenters on posts about the dessert are calling it as they see it. “It’s dead*ss just a cake with sprinkles, it’s not that fascinating,” one commenter wrote on one of influencer Greta Louise Tomé’s posts about the trend. Others have noted that dot cakes are basically just a version of cortadillos, aka Mexican desserts featuring fluffy cake, pink frosting, and those same colorful sprinkles.
That said, there’s no denying the chokehold this trend currently has on the internet. But for those who can’t make it to New York to get their hands on the official Dotcup product — or for those who don’t have room in their budget for the $8-a-pop cake cups — many foodfluencers have shared very easy recipes you can use to make DIY dot cakes at home.
The idea is incredibly simple: make some individual cakes in a cup, top with frosting, and then completely cover with sprinkles. But to get the dot cake effect (and, let’s be real, the full dot cake aesthetic), there are some key steps to take.
The first step — gathering your ingredients — comes with some great news: You can just used boxed cake mix! If you want to get fancy and make your cake from scratch, you’re welcome to, but if you want to save a little time (and ingredients), you can just pick up your favorite box of cake batter, a few eggs and some oil, and follow the instructions on the box.
Next, you need to get the cake into a cup. Some at-home bakers have oven-friendly ramekins they can use to bake individual portions of cake, but the simpler method is to just make the whole cake in a cake pan or two, just as the recipe on the box calls for. Once it’s baked, you can cut out slices of the cake to fit whatever individual container you’re planning to use, whether that’s a small bowl, a jar, or whatever else you have on hand. You can fill the entire container with cake, or alternate layers of cake and icing. It doesn’t really matter what’s going on beneath the surface — in this case, it’s what’s on the outside that counts.
Once you have your container full of cake, spread a layer of icing on the very top, so that it’s flush with the edges of the container. Make sure the icing creates a smooth surface — you can drag a knife across it to make sure there are no bumps or excess icing.
Then, it’s time for the fun part: sprinkles! To get that completely-covered look, dump a bunch of sprinkles onto a plate so that the plate is fully covered. Then, hold your dot cake upside-down and lightly press it onto the plate so that the sprinkles stick to the icing.
And voila — you have your very own dot cake to enjoy (and post about, ofc).