Recipes For Simple Vanilla Cake

This is my best vanilla cake recipe.A classic butter cake but with Japanese techniques applied for the most plush, soft and moist yellow cake like you’ve never had before. This professional bakery style cake stays fresh and moist for 4 days — that’s unheard of! Use the same batter for perfect Vanilla Cupcakes.

So if all that appeals to you too, then I dare say this might become YOUR favourite vanilla cake recipe too! And here’s a little preview to show you how soft and fluffy it still is after 4 days:

This vanilla cake is the result of bringing together the best of Japanese sponge cakes and Western butter based cakes. It has the world renowned very soft, fluffy crumb of Japanese cakes anduses the Japanese baking method, combined with the buttery goodness and sweetness of Western cakes.

Butter Cake (sponge Cake)

But it’s more sturdy than Japanese cakes which are so delicate, they can really only be decorated with cream. Anything heavier and the bottom layer gets squished!

Also, importantly, this cake incorporates my cake shelf-life requirement to stay perfectly fresh for at least 2 days after it’s made. (This lasts perfectly for 4 days.) Because who bakes cakes on the day they are intended to be served??

Interestingly, baking experts will recognise the method and ingredients in this cake to be very similar to what is called a Hot Milk Cake in America – albeit strangely it’s often described as a “dense” cake, presumably because they don’t preserve the egg aeration to the extent I insist we do and also because sometimes it’s baked in bundt pans which takes far longer to bake (= dense cake).

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The words“best served on the day” on a cakerecipe is never a good sign – it means it drastically degradesovernight. But THIS cake recipe is near perfect for 4 days – even 5 days!

I don’t want to get too cake nerdy with you… but one sign of a well made cake is an even crumb. No large tunnels or lots of irregular size holes. It looks and tastes

There’s a widely held misconception that cake flour is the secret to a better cake. That’s only true for certain cakes. For this one, plain / all purpose flour yields better results.

Simple Vanilla Cake Recipe By Lynn Sasha

Here’s what you need to make this plush, soft vanilla cake.No cake flour, no buttermilk, no sour cream. Tried them all – this cake is better with plain / all purpose flour and just milk.

Making a really good cake that starts with “cream butter and sugar until fluffy….” is actually harder than you think. The butter has to be at the perfect temperature, and you can’t have chilly mixing bowls.

If it’s too hard, you’ll never manage to cream it and you’ll end up with grease pockets. If you beat butter too long, you break the air pockets.

Easy Vanilla Cake Filling

There’s more room for error with cookies and some other types of baked goods. But the butter temperature needs to be near perfect for cakes and cupcakes. (17°C/63°F is the perfect temperature for “softened butter”).

I’ve tried dozens and dozens over the years, to compare to this Vanilla Cake. This recipe puts all to shame in terms of fresh shelf life.

Heads up – this is a long step by step explanation post, to ensure those who are new to baking are armed with everything they need to make this cake perfectly, first time and every time!

Classic Sponge Cake (3 Ingredients!)

Hard to find the perfect cake because there is nothing to hide behind, it is one of the purest forms of baking. And the “cream butter and sugar” step is the biggest cause of problems, setting up the cake for success or failure from the very start (read above).

A stand mixer makes this vanilla cake a breeze to make, though it can be made with a handheld electric beater.While it takes time tobeat the eggs to make a lovely fluffy cake, this recipe is more fail-proof than the usual “cream butter and sugar until fluffy” recipes – read the above box for why.

1. Whip the eggs and sugar –Beat the eggs with sugar for a whole 7 minutes until thick and glossy, it changes from yellow to white, and tripled in volume (just over double depth in the bowl).

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The aeration created during this step is key for a soft, fluffy crumb. This is a technique borrowed from Japanese sponge cakes.

2. Gradually add flour – Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Thenadd into egg mixture in 3 lots, mixing for just 5 seconds on Speed 1 in between. This should make the flour

3. Hot melted butter in milk – use a microwave or stove to heat milk with the butter until it melts. Believe it or not, HOT milk helps with aeration in this cake. I doubted it, so I tried with cooled melted butter in milk and found it did not rise as well.

Homemade Vanilla Cake Recipe

The use of hot milk with melted butter in a cake batter is another technique used in some types of Japanese sponge cakes (such as this one from Chopstick Chronicles, a Japanese food blog). Interestingly, I recently discovered it is also used in a traditional Southern cake called Hot Milk Cakes.

4. Mix some batter into hot milk – this serves two purposes: a) bring down the temperature of the hot milk so it won’t “cook” the eggs (ie. tempering); and b) it lightens up the density of the hot milk (see above – it becomes foamy) so it blends together faster when added to the rest of the whipped egg mixture.

The melted butter in hot milk infuses this cake with beautiful subtle buttery flavour without the greasy mouthfeel inherent with butter cakes.

Easy Vanilla Cake (one Bowl Recipe)

5. Slowly pour milk mixture back into whipped eggs over 20 seconds on Speed 1. Scrape down sides of bowls, then mix for 10 seconds on Speed 1 – the batter should now be smooth;

This cake can be made in various pan sizes, bundt pans and also makes perfect cupcakes. Click herefor a handy table of different sizes, bake times and cake height (including 3 layer cakes).

7. Knock out big air bubblesby dropping the cake pans on the counter 3 times. This won’t affect the cake-rising bubbles created in Step 1. But itmakes large bubbles in the batter rise to the surface andburst.

How To Bake A Simple White Cake

If you don’t do this, you end up with maybe 6 or so large bubbles on the cake surface that go brown, and more unsightly large air pockets in the crumb. The surface blemishes don’t really matter if you are frosting. But if you’re not frosting the cake (eg just dusting with icing sugar / powdered sugar), you may care.

8. Bake 30 minutes until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. The cake will have a slight dome but it flattens when it cools.

You may get the faintest cracks on the surface, like you can see in the middle of the left cake in the photo above. That can occur if your oven doesn’t distribute heat evenly (my left front is hotter). But don’t fret – once the cake cools and the slight dome flattens, the cracks will disappear.

My Very Best Vanilla Cake

9. COOL upside downfor level cakes (so you have neat, straight layers in a layer cake) on a cooling rack. If you don’t mind a slight dome surface / specifically want to show the beautiful golden brown surface (eg if making a cake dusted with icing sugar / powdered sugar, or a glaze), then cool it right side up; and

10. Decorate! Frost with your favourite frosting, smother with cream, fresh berries, swirl with chocolate fudge frosting or simply dust with icing sugar and serve with a dollop of yogurt or cream!

The photos below are my attempt to show you how incredibly soft the cake still is four days after it’s made! If it were dry like typical butter cakes that start with “cream butter and sugar until fluffy”, the crumb would break when I jabbed it, and it would never spring back.

Vanilla Cake Recipe

Click here for a handy table of different cake pan sizes, bake times and cake height. This Vanilla cake will work with the following cake pan sizes:

Clockwise from top left: Vanilla Cake frosted with vanilla buttercream, my Secret Less-Sweet Fluffy Vanilla Frosting topped with fresh flowers, Chocolate Buttercream and Lemon Glaze.

And with all that – I’m finally done.Finally happy. This is THE Vanilla Cake recipe that is my best all rounder. For birthday cakes, special occasions, to make to impress the pants off your family and friends.

Ridiculous Vanilla Cake

Recipe video above. Your classic vanilla butter cake but with Japanese techniques applied for the most plush, soft and moist yellow cake like you’ve never had before. This professional bakery style cake stays fresh and moist for 4 days — that’s unheard of!

This is THE Vanilla Cake recipe for all occasions — from layer cakes to birthday cakes, Victoria Sponge to strawberry shortcake … the possibilities are endless…..

Frosting – classic vanilla buttercream provided, see here for my secret Less-Sweet Fluffy Frosting. Different pan sizes – Note 9. Cupcakes – see Vanilla Cupcakes recipe. Metric/weights –

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