A classic vanilla cake recipe, made completely from scratch! Ditch the box mixes — you’ll love how easy, moist and fluffy this homemade vanilla cake is!
I’m back in cold, snow-covered Pennsylvania after a long, wonderful (if not very warm… we arrived in the midst of a cold spell!) weekend in Florida with family. My cousin and my sister both ran in the Disney marathon and I nearly screamed a lung out on the Tower of Terror 😱.
My sister had a bad cold for the trip but still managed to run the Disney marathon and beat her own time, despite being barely able to even talk. I caught the cold on the way back home and don’t seem to be able to muster up the energy to change out of sweatpants or cook myself anything other than vanilla cake. The endurance gene skipped right over me, I swear.
Orrrrr, maybe it just exhibits itself in different ways. There’s no way I could run a marathon, but I can endure recipe fail after recipe fail after recipe fail until I land on the most perfect vanilla cake recipe there ever was.
Completely cloaked in chocolate frosting, naturally.
This vanilla cake recipe has been a long time coming. The journey began with my pineapple upside-down cake and was continued with my marble cake recipe — if you recall it took me almost a dozen attempts to get the vanilla cake base of those recipes right. A few more tweaks were still needed to make this a perfect standalone vanilla cake recipe, but, after a lot of wasted ingredients, we have arrived.
Looks like I can endure after all.
Tips for making the perfect vanilla cake recipe
- It’s best if all of your ingredients are at room temperature. I like to set out my butter, eggs, and buttermilk early in the morning so that they have reached room temperature by the time I am ready to bake.
- Don’t switch out the oil for more butter. This vanilla cake recipe uses both butter and oil because it gives it the best possible taste while still preserving the soft, fluffy texture that you want. Using all butter will actually likely make your cake more dense and dry. You can, however, substitute vegetable oil for the canola oil without issue.
- Make sure that your vanilla cake cools completely before frosting! If it’s warm at all, it’s likely to melt the frosting, leaving you with a big mess (ask me how I know…).
- Store your finished vanilla cake in an airtight container (like an airtight cake carrier). It will keep at room temperature for several days, or longer if stored in the refrigerator.
Be sure to check out my most recent video where I walk through all the steps to make the perfect vanilla cake, completely from scratch (printable recipe is just below the video).
Make sure that you also check out my favorite chocolate cake recipe!!
Enjoy!
How to Make Vanilla Cake
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter softened to room temperature (113g)
- ½ cup canola oil* (120ml)
- 1 1/2 cup granulated sugar 300g
- 4 eggs room temperature preferred
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
- 3 cups all-purpose flour (375g)
- 1 Tablespoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/4 cup buttermilk room temperature preferred (300ml)
- 1 batch Chocolate Frosting
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F (177C) and prepare two deep 8" round cake pans** by lining the bottoms with parchment paper and lightly greasing the sides. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer (or in a large bowl using an electric mixer) cream together the butter, canola oil and sugar until creamy and well-combined.
- Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Stir in vanilla extract.
- In a separate, medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Using a spatula and gently hand-mixing, alternate adding flour mixture and buttermilk to the butter mixture, starting and ending with flour mixture and mixing until just combined after each addition. The batter should be smooth and completely combined, but avoid over-mixing.
- Evenly divide batter into your prepared cake pans, and bake on 350F (175C) for 30-35 minutes. When the cake is done, the surface should spring back to the touch and a toothpick inserted in the center should come out mostly clean with few moist crumbs (no wet batter).
- Allow cakes to cool in their cake pans for 10-15 minutes before inverting onto cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.
- Frost cake using my chocolate frosting (or see notes for other favorite frosting options) and decorate with sprinkles (if desired).
Notes
Frosting Options
The chocolate frosting I linked to in the ingredients is my favorite pairing with this cake, but here are some other great options:How to Make Into Vanilla Cupcakes:
Fill cupcake liners no more than 3/4 of the way full. Bake on 350F for 17-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs or clean. This recipe will make approximately 24 cupcakes.Nutrition
Jessica
I don’t have buttermilk on hand at the moment. Is there a substitution you could reccomend
Sam
Hi Jessica! I do have a buttermilk substitute you can make. It’s really simple. 🙂
John
Made this for my son’s 5th bday party and it was a hit. The cake was delicious and not overly sweet, but wasn’t as moist as I hoped for, but that could have been an ingredient issue on my end. Making it again for Christmas eve to use with fresh strawberries and homemade whipped cream. Definitely recommend this one.
SUSAN
I followed the recipe exactly ( i did make 1.5 times the ingredients), and although it tastes good, it seems a bit dense to me. Any ideas what i did wrong? I cooked in two 10″ pans for about 40-45 min. Until batter was cooked in middle. I made your Ermine frosting and that turned out great! Thanks
Sam
Hi Susan! There are a couple of things that can cause a dense cake; over-mixing (which is easier to do when increasing the recipe) or over-baking. I’m glad you enjoyed the frosting. 🙂
Sonja
Yay, finally a vanilla cake recipe that turned out and uses ingredients that you generally have at home! I made 3/4 of the recipe and baked it in one 9 inch pan for 35min, I also made the buttermilk substitute following your recipe and it turned out great. Thank you,very happy.
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed it so much, Sonja! 🙂
Mae
Hi! I’d love to bake this recipe but I really want to do it in my 10×2 inch heart shaped cake pan! Do you have an recommendation on what time I should bake it for?
Sam
Hi Mae! Unfortunately I have never baked with this shape pan so I’m not sure how long it would take to bake the cake. I would recommend keeping an eye on it. It’s important to not over-do this one. 🙂
David
I want to make a three layer cake. Can I decide the batter into 3 cake pans? Also, how much will I need to reduce the baking time?
David
Sam
Hi David! You can divide the batter between the 3 pans but the layers will be pretty thin. I am not sure what the bake time would be if you did that. I would recommend increasing the recipe by 50% to have 3 layers. 🙂
Gina Marie Villani
Seriously, the best!! I used a whipped cream frosting, topped with fresh strawberries (I also put frosting and strawberries between the layers) and everyone loved it! I’ll definitely be making again. And again. And again!
Hwa G
This is the best chocolate icing cake ever!!! I loooove the icing and the cake is so good too. I put less sugar in the icing. We already made this cake 3 times in a month. Highly recommend this cake!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed it so much! 🙂
Ciana
Hello! So I love this cake recipe. I wanted to use this vanilla cake recipe to make 2 – 6 inch layers and am using different cake flavor for the other layers. Is it possible that I can half this vanilla cake recipe and get the same results? Or even double the recipe if I wanted to make more layers?
Sam
Hi Ciana! You should be able to half or double this recipe without issue. The only thing I caution you on doubling it is to not over-mix the cake. 🙂
Gabby
Is there a way to replace the caster oil in the recipe
Sam
Hi Gabby! Do you mean canola oil? Any neutral oil will work here. 🙂
Asia
I have made this cake several times and it always comes out perfectly. I sometimes add moringa powder for a healthy green.thank you.
We love it.
Elliott
Hi there! Just wondering, can this be baked in a 13×9 inch pan?
Sam
Hi Elliot! This will fit in a 9 x 13. I have had other readers report a 30 minute bake time. 🙂
Laura
These are amazing!!!
marina
Hallo Sam ,
can i use caster suger instead of granulated suger ? And will it be the same grams ?
Thanks
Best Regards
Marina
Sam
Hi Marina! You can use the caster sugar here and yes you will need the same weight in grams. Enjoy! 🙂
Michael
Is it okay to use salted butter instead of unsalted?
Sam
Hi Michael! You can use salted butter just reduce the salt by 1/4 teaspoon. 🙂
Nawal
Hello.
I am.quite now to baking but was very successfully able to use this recipe to make a pink and white checkerboard cake for my daughter’s girls only playdate.
I did reduced about half a cup of sugar as we prefer a not too sweet cake, and it was perfect for us.
I cannot get over the tender and moist cake and I am still having difficulty believing that I was able to bake something like this..
Thanks a lot for this recipe, I will be coming back to this for sure.
Do you have a chocolate cake recipe with a similar tender crumb? Or a chocolate version of this cake? If you do then my search for the perfect chocolate cake cake would just stop.
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed it so much! I do have a chocolate cake recipe as well. 🙂
Miriam
First time i ever made a cake from scratch and this recipe was easy and delicious! I did use only 1 cup of the sugar and 1 1/2 of butter, but followed everything else as listed and it was perfect, moist and creamy and had plenty of the icing for 24 cupcakes. Thank you!
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed it Miriam! 🙂