Ah, milk and cereal. They’re a match made in heaven, and nostalgic as heck. I can remember many a Saturday morning curled up in front of the TV with a bowl of milk and cereal in hand – it was a true staple in my childhood diet. The idea of translating those flavors into a cake didn’t occur to me until a year ago, when a friend of mine was having a cereal-themed birthday party. I thought it was such a fun and playful idea for a cake, and although I didn’t start testing flavors just then, I added it to my list of future cake ideas and the dream was alive.
Fast forward to present day, I found myself wandering the cereal aisle to find the perfect flavors to finally bring my milk and cereal cake dreams to life. I decided on Froot Loops, mainly because they taste good and they’re so pretty, but this recipe can be created with just about any cereal your heart desires (we all have our favorites!). I’ve made it successfully with the wheat pieces in Lucky Charms and I’m sure just about any cereal would be tasty.
Creating the perfect milk and cereal cake recipe definitely took some trial and error. My first go-round I ended up crushing up Froot Loops by hand and folding them into the cake batter, and while the result was pretty to look at (like rainbow funfetti!) the taste was off because the cereal got super chewy after the baking process. After trying some different approaches and conducting a few blind taste tests, I’ve refined the recipe to make this milk and cereal cake taste just as heavenly as it looks.
The secrets to the taste are: using actual cereal milk in place of regular milk (made by soaking the cereal in whole milk) and also adding finely ground cereal into the cake batter instead of just crushed up cereal pieces. To keep the cake moist and fluffy I’ve also incorporated sour cream and cake flour, which I swear by for all of my vanilla-based cakes.
If you’ve seen this cake on my Instagram, you’ll also see that the design concept really helps sell the premise of the cake. Some credit has to be given to my husband on that, because he totally helped come up with the idea of creating a “milk splash” out of white chocolate for the topper! Side by side, we sketched out the concept art before I took to the kitchen to figure out how to make it happen. Don’t worry, I’ve even created a full tutorial on the white chocolate milk splash in case you want to get the look!
Milk And Cereal Cake
Ingredients
Cereal Milk
- 2 Cups whole milk
- 2 Cups Froot Loops (or cereal of your choice)
Milk And Cereal Cake
- 1 Cup finely ground Froot Loops or cereal of your choice (equals about 3 cups of whole cereal)
- 3 3/4 Cups (398g) cake flour, sifted before measuring
- 1 Tbsp baking powder
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 1/8 Cups (254g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2 Cups (410g) granulated sugar
- 5 eggs, room temperature
- 1 1/2 Tbsp vanilla
- 1/2 Cup (112g) sour cream, room temperature
- 1 1/2 Cups (360ml) cereal milk, room temperature
Cereal Milk Buttercream
- 2 Cups (452g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 7 Cups (840g) powdered sugar
- 4 Tbsp (59ml) cereal milk, room temperature
- 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp salt, or to taste
Instructions
Make The Cereal Milk
- Pour the whole milk over cereal and let sit for 15 minutes. Strain out the cereal and reserve the milk to use in the cake and buttercream recipes.
Make The Milk And Cereal Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350˚F and prepare three 8-inch or four 6-inch cake pans by spraying the sides with cooking spray and fitting a parchment or wax paper circle to the bottom of each pan.
- In a food processor, grind up Froot Loops (or cereal of your choice) into a fine powder. Keep in mind that 1 cup of finely ground cereal equals about 3 cups of whole cereal. Place into a medium sized bowl and add the sifted cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Whisk to combine and set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream butter for one minute on high. Scrape down the bowl and paddle and add the sugar. Cream together on high for two minutes, scraping down bowl and paddle once in between. Turn mixer to low and add the eggs, one at a time, scraping down bowl and paddle as necessary. Once all eggs are added, turn the mixer to high and beat for three minutes.
- Add vanilla and sour cream and continue mixing for one minute. Turn the mixer to low and add all of the dry ingredients at once until just combined, then add the cereal milk all at once. Scrape down the bowl and paddle once more and mix on low for about 30 seconds. Do not overmix. Pour batter into prepared pans (about ⅔ full).
- Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool the cakes for five minutes before releasing from the pan and continuing to cool on a baking sheet or wire rack for several hours.
Make The Cereal Milk Buttercream
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, whip the butter until fluffy and light (almost white) in color, about 7 minutes, scraping down the bowl and paddle twice during the process. Add powdered sugar a few cups at a time and beat on medium, scraping down the bowl and paddle after each interval. Add the cereal milk, vanilla, and salt and continue to mix on medium for two minutes.
Assembly
- After torting the cake layers to the desired height, fill and frost them with cereal milk buttercream. Decorate with crushed up cereal and a white chocolate milk splash crown.
Notes
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What’s your favorite cereal? If you substituted it into this recipe I want to know how it turned out! Let me know in the comments below, I’d love to hear.
When you made this recipe with Lucky Charms, did you grind both the wheat cereal AND marshmallows or just the wheat cereal into the fine powder? I’ve come across varying recipes, some of which separate the wheat from the marshmallow pieces, so just wanted to confirm.
Hi Theodora! I just used the wheat pieces for the cake part and used the marshmallows and wheat pieces to flavor the cereal milk. Enjoy!
I made this cake with cinnamon toast crunch and it was soooo delicious. Even better, it aged beautifully and was better the next day. I was worried about the buttercream being too sweet, but again it was perfect. Im making it with lucky charms for St. Paddy’s day and am hopeful it will turn out just as delicious.
Yay, Becky! I’m so happy to hear that this recipe was a hit with Cinnamon Toast Crunch! Sounds delicious and I’m gonna have to try that cereal with this recipe someday
Hello, have you tried this recipe with cupcakes?
Hi Resa! This recipe works great as cupcakes! Just be sure to fill the tins no more than 2/3 full and bake at 350ºF for 15-18 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Enjoy!
Is it possible to substitute the sugar for monkfruit?
Hi Erica! I’ve never tried that before, so I can’t say what the results will be. You are welcome to try it though!
Which sweetener do you think would be better? Coconut sugar, maple sugar, or monkfruit?
Hi Erica! I’ve never tried substituting with any of those ingredients before, so I can’t say for sure how this cake recipe will turn out with any of them. I would research each of them to see which is most commonly used as a sub in a cake recipe and go from there. Feel free to let me know which one you ended up using and how it turned out!
Hi, any idea how I make a cereal milk whipped cream instead of a buttercream?
Hi there! I’ve never made whipped cream frosting before, but I think if you soaked the cereal in whatever liquid you’re using to make the whipped cream before whipping it up it should give it more of a cereal flavor.
Hi Whitney! I’d like to make this with cocoa krispies, but I think I need to convert the yellow cake to a chocolate cake so that the chocolate flavor isn’t lost. Have you tried this? Any suggestion on how to modify the recipe.
What a fun idea, Susanne! I’ve never tried that before, but here is what I would do: use this chocolate cake recipe as a base: https://sugarandsparrow.com/chocolate-cake-recipe/ and substitute the buttermilk in the recipe with cereal milk (in this case soak 1 Cup of cereal in 1 Cup of whole milk). For the ground cereal, add 2/3 cup in with the dry ingredients of the chocolate cake. Hope that makes sense and let me know how it goes!
Do you have to use sour cream. Or can you substitute it with another ingredient
Hi Sarah! The sour cream is what makes this cake extra moist, so I consider it important in this recipe. If you’d like to substitute it though, the best sub is plain greek yogurt. Enjoy!
Can I decorate the cake the day before it’s needed, or will the fruit loops colour bleed into the buttercream? This cake is beautiful!
Hi Shannon! The Froot Loops won’t bleed, but they will go stale if you decorate the cake a day ahead. I do recommend decorating same day for max freshness, but you can most certainly decorate a day ahead if you don’t mind that the Froot Loops aren’t as crunchy!
Hi Whitney! Do you think I could cut the recipe in half to make less cake layers? How would you recommend cutting 5 eggs in half?
You certainly can half this recipe, Grace! For the eggs, use 2 whole eggs + 1 egg yolk.
Thank you for the tip! I can’t wait to try this cake!!!
Just made this and it’s moist, delicious, and was super fun to make! Thank you for the recipe and amazing instructions. Looking forward to making more of your deadly cakes!
Yay, Alexandra! I’m so happy to hear you love this recipe as much as I do!
Hi, gonna make this cake today. Any tips on getting the fruit loops to stick to the side of the cake ? Thank you
Hi Tamara! Apply the Froot Loops right after you frost the cake, when the frosting is still slightly wet to the touch. That’s the trick!
I made this cake for my six year olds birthday. I made the frosting pink and decorated it as a unicorn. My family thought I was crazy when I pulled out the cereal and food processor, but they didn’t after they tried this cake! It was delicious!!! I used lucky charms and the little marshmallows from the cereal made a funfetti look within the cake. It was really cute and worked with the colorful unicorn theme. Everyone, myself included, loved the flavor. I was excited to make a cake flavor other than chocolate and vanilla and this was perfect! Thank you for the recipe!!
Yay, Elizabeth! That makes me so happy to hear that the recipe was such a hit. Happy birthday to your kiddo!!
This did not go down well. Cake was very dense and almost cornbread like. Really hoped for it to be light and airy, guessed the measurements were a bit off. Should have stuck with weight measurements instead off cup measurements.
Frosting turned out good though!
Gonna give it a second try!!! Anywhere I can get cereal milk flavoured essence/ extract in South Africa?
Oh no! So sorry it turned out dense for you. I wish I knew more of your process so I could get to the bottom of why, but maybe try the gram measurements next time and be sure that everything is room temperature, try not to overmix the batter, etc. I’ve never heard of cereal milk flavored essence or extract before, definitely not available in the US (where I’m located).
Hii does the flavor change a lot if i use All purpose flower?
Hi Sofia! The flavor won’t change so much as the texture. If you use all purpose flour, the cake will end up being more dense. There is a way to make homemade cake flour using all purpose flour though! Here’s how: http://sugarandsparrow.com/homemade-cake-flour
How many cupcakes would this recipe make? As i would only need about 25-30 cupcakes tops. Should I cut the recipe in half?
Hi there! I think this recipe will make about 40ish cupcakes. It’s a lot of batter. But if you cut the recipe in half it might not be enough, so I’d recommend keeping it as-is for that amount of cupcakes and just know that you’ll have a few extra.