The Most Amazing Vanilla Cake is moist and flavorful and made completely from scratch. It’s the best homemade vanilla cake you’ll ever have!
The world of cakes can be a bit confusing. White cake, yellow cake, vanilla cake — aren’t they all more or less the same? Honestly, we love them all, but there are some key differences. White cake is the lightest of the three. It uses oil rather than butter to keep the end result as white as possible, not to mention egg whites only. Yellow cake uses whole eggs and butter to give it that classic yellow color. Vanilla cake doesn’t have the same rules to follow. It can use whole eggs and butter, but it isn’t required. The most important aspect of a vanilla cake is that it uses enough vanilla to really make that flavor pop. With a whole tablespoon of vanilla in this recipe, you are sure to find that this is the most amazing vanilla cake ever. You’ll never use a boxed cake mix again!
Room Temperature Ingredients:
Several of the ingredients in the recipe are listed as being room temperature. By following this method you’ll have a better texture in the end so it is worth the patience. For the milk, we simply warmed it in the microwave for 30 seconds because the idea of leaving it out on the counter to reach room temperature didn’t sit well with us.
Salted vs. Unsalted Butter:
This recipe is developed using salted butter because that is what most people tend to buy and have on hand. I like to keep my recipes convenient for home cooks so salted butter is used whenever possible in my recipes. Unsalted butter certainly works, but you may need to add a pinch more of salt.
Is vegetable oil necessary?
There is a combination of butter and vegetable oil in this recipe. I find that vegetable oil gives the cake a lot more moisture.
Can The Most Amazing Vanilla Cake be made into cupcakes?
Why, yes it can! You can find full instructions for the most amazing vanilla cupcakes here!
Can I make this recipe into 3 layers?
Yes, you can! Whether you prefer two thick layers or three thinner layers, this will still be the most amazing vanilla cake you’ve ever had!
Egg Substitute:
There are numerous options for substituting eggs in baking recipes. You can always try using one of those.
Pan Sizes:
You are certainly welcome to try alternative pan sizes, but you’ll need to adjust cooking times and be careful as to how much you fill the pan. This recipe is written for 9-inch round pans. Eight-inch and ten-inch pans will require adjustments to the recipe.
Gluten Free:
Use gluten free flours at your own risk. Not all gluten free flours are equal and most don’t work as a straight forward substitute. I have not tested any gluten free flours in this recipe as I do not have Celiac’s disease.
Do you have a chocolate version?
Why, yes I do. I call it The Most Amazing Chocolate Cake.
Frosting:
Feel free to use your favorite frosting with this cake. You can never go wrong with buttercream frosting!
Storage Instructions:
Store your cake in an airtight container for up to 4 days. If frosted with a simple buttercream, it can be left at room temperature. If you use a cream cheese frosting, you will need to store this in the fridge.
If you like this recipe, you may be interested in these other delicious cake recipes:
- The Most Amazing Red Velvet Cake
- The Most Amazing Strawberry Cake
- The Most Amazing Carrot Cake
- Luscious Lemon Cake
Watch the video below where Rachel will walk you through every step of this recipe. Sometimes it helps to have a visual, and we’ve always got you covered with our cooking show. You can find the complete collection of recipes on YouTube, Facebook Watch, or our Facebook Page, or right here on our website with their corresponding recipes.
Fantastic cake Love all these recipes
Your chocolate cake recipe is a hit. Made it for my nephew’s birthday.
Thank you so much.
Going to try this recipe now?
Your cake batter recipes are the ONLY ones I use and are always a huge hit! Question, this time I will be making a marble cake and plan on using your vanilla and chocolate cake recipe, except that it needs to be sugar free. Would swerve/stevia work great in replace of regular sugar?
I have made your Most Amazing Chocolate cake and cup cake recipe a few times now. It is the only chocolate cake recipe I use. It is so good. I do not use any cake mixes any more. And am going to try this vanilla cake recipe. Thank you for sharing these recipes.
This is definitely the BEST vanilla cake recipe EVER!! This is my “go to” recipe for a vanilla or yellow cake base because it’s so perfect. I follow the recipe exactly and don’t change a thing except sometimes I’ll throw in add-ins like berries or chocolate chips. I’m amazed at how moist yet sturdy this cake is! Basically, it has the perfect crumb so it can hold up against heavier fillings and decorations without being dry. I will continue to use this recipe and stand back while friends and family ouuu and ahhh over the cakes I make!
Hello. I followed the recipe perfectly and made it into 4 6” cakes. I baked them for about 26 minutes each. When I checked the cake before that it wiggled in the center or toothpick cake out wet. The cake had great flavor and I am obsessed with your chocolate cake recipe, but for some reason this cake came out dry. When I cut it the piece literally fell out and the cake crumbled. Can you provide me with any tips? I’d like to say I’m a very competent baker and am wondering what I could have done wrong? I wanted to use this for the top layer of my daughters cake for her birthday this Saturday.
I should also add I made it on Thursday, refrigerated and iced it on Saturday and ate it on Sunday. Could it have just been too old? I cut the tops of the cake off to even each cake out and I thought they were very moist and was worried if the inside was going to be too wet so I was surprised when it was super dry. Maybe it was just old?
Hi Melinda!
Check her chart up top, you may have put too much batter into the pans. I did that once with 6 inch cake pans, and realized that 1 1/4 cup was the perfect amount, as stated above and it will bake perfectly in 25-30 minutes. Hope this helps!
My oven is small , Can i bake twice , is the batter still ok to wait ..while i bake the other, tks
Yes, you can bake the pans one at a time.
Can you bake this cake in a 13×9 in pan?
How long?
Yes, it takes about 40 minutes.
Can you use cake flour instead of regular flour
Yes you can.
The best vanilla cake recipe I’ve ever tried! This one is a keeper! Thank you for sharing!
Hi Rachel thank you for sharing this recipe. I made this few times and came out great! 🙂 Just wondering if I can replace vegetable oil with corn oil or sunflower oil?
Yup you should be fine