The Best Vanilla Cake
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The Best Vanilla Cake. All bakers search for the best vanilla cake recipe. After 30 years, I developed my own moist, buttery, perfect vanilla cake. I've added Marshmallow Frosting too!
Originally published Aug 2010.
The best vanilla cake recipe is something every curious baker spends plenty of time searching for. I've tried dozens over the years and have conducted many experiments.
I tweaked each recipe trying to get the result I want. This one is the best I've tried so far.
It is quite moist and has a good density but not as dense as pound cake. I like the balance of texture that is achieved by using a combination of all-purpose flour and cake flour. It is important not to over measure the flour.
Essential ingredients!
One essential ingredient in this recipe is real dairy butter.
Margarine just won't cut it.
I've used whipping cream in other recipes but this one gets a lot of richness from using undiluted evaporated milk instead.
Finally, the vanilla flavouring is crucial. DO NOT use artificial vanilla flavouring! In fact NEVER use it! Use the best quality, real vanilla extract that you can find for real, exotically fragrant vanilla cake.
Vanilla paste is also delicious in this recipe. You use an equal amount to vanilla extract.
The frosting for the Best Vanilla Cake.
The frosting on this cake is a family favourite which goes by many names but is referred to at our house as Marshmallow Frosting. It has been featured several times on this site.
You can find our terrific recipe for Marshmallow Frosting here. It is the perfect frosting for this cake.
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The Best Vanilla Cake
All bakers search for The Best Vanilla Cake recipe. After 30 years, I developed my own moist, buttery, perfect vanilla cake; with Marshmallow Frosting too.
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups cake or pastry flour
- 1 ¼ cups all purpose flour
- 2 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 2 cups sugar
- 4 eggs, at room temperature
- 1 cup evaporated milk, undiluted.
- 4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
- Sift together both flours, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
- For this recipe it is very important to be sure to sift the flour very well before measuring. Flour that is too compacted can cause a denser, heavier cake. If you do not have a flour sifter, put some flour in a bowl and whisk it for a minute before spooning the flour into the measuring cup to measure. Do this for both types of flour in the recipe.
- Cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after every addition.
- Beat in the vanilla extract.
- Gently fold in the dry ingredients in three equal portions, alternately with the evaporated milk. When adding dry and wet ingredients alternately in any baking recipe, always begin and end with the dry ingredients.
- Pour batter evenly into 2 well greased and floured 9 inch cake pans.
- Bake in a 325 degree F oven for about 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Watch it carefully, you will not want to over bake this cake, as soon as the toothpick comes out clean, remove the cake from the oven and let it rest in the pans for 5 minutes before turning it out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
As with all my cake recipes I recommend using aluminum cake pans for gentle even heating with much less chance of over baking.
Nutrition Information
Yield
16Serving Size
one sliceAmount Per Serving Calories 407Total Fat 19gSaturated Fat 9gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 8gCholesterol 100mgSodium 224mgCarbohydrates 54gFiber 1gSugar 36gProtein 6g
The nutritional information provided is automatically calculated by third party software and is meant as a guideline only. Exact accuracy is not guaranteed. For recipes where all ingredients may not be used entirely, such as those with coatings on meats, or with sauces or dressings for example, calorie & nutritional values per serving will likely be somewhat lower than indicated.
There are some good suggestions here Darcy. I recently read this when trying to advise my sister. http://www.canadianliving.com/food/baking_and_desserts/high_altitude_baking.php
Yes you should always sift flour for cakes so as not to over measure it.
Not baking all the way through sounds odd, maybe it's your pans. I suspect they carry heat too quickly. I use aluminum bakeware all the time and never have those sorts of problems. I'd buy an oven thermometer and check the accuracy of your oven temperature as well.
Try the higher altitude suggestions at this URL
http://www.canadianliving.com/food/baking_and_desserts/high_altitude_baking.php
Tried this recipe this afternoon for my Dad's 71st bday tomorrow.
I followed your directions to a 't', and I've honestly never had a cake with such an amazing and even rise!! My two 9" cakes looks just like the pics (almost 3" thick).
I'm sure it will taste just as good as it looks! Can't wait to try a slice tomorrow 🙂 Thanks for the recipe!
Hi Barry,
I am on a mission for the perfect cake, which I am defining as "cake mix" texture but made with real ingredients!! I have tried many recipes but they are all too dense (or "dunch" as my mom would say). This one and also the white velvet cake look so good - which one do you think is most fluffy and moist? Also, any other tips for fluffy cakes would be awesome.
Thanks!
Both are great but the white velvet would be the "fluffier" of the two and probably more fool-proof. Cake flour is the key to a good textured cake IMHO.
Nice recipe. I have a question: when you said 1 1/2 cups cake and pastry flour, 1 1/2 cups cake flour and 1 1/2 cups of pastry flour? or just 1 1/2 cups mixing both flours? Sorry if my question is too stupid but I am confused.
Congratulations for your blog, I am a big follower.
Thanks.
Regards
Victoria
3 cups in total Victoria, 1 1/2 all purpose flour plus 1 1/2 cups cake flour.
This looks delicious-cant wait to try it out this week. I was reading some of the other posts about having cakes not rise in the middle and I have a suggestion - I recently read (I believe on Rose Birnbaum's site) that if you use unbleached flour it alters the texture and height of the cake layers-something about the proteins are different. I had been having the same issue for a couple yrs and did not realise it was b/c of my flour-I had switched to unbleached b/c it seemed healthier (hey, I try :)) Anyway, I switched back to bleached and all my layers have risen beautifully, cooked evenly. Also another suggestion would be to try using cake strips that you wet and wrap around the sides of the cake pans.
Hey barry,
I tried this recipe today n though the batter was a bit too much for my pan, the cake tastes really good n soft. Thanks so much for this recipe.
Hi Barry, In response to Victoria above, you said it's 3 cups of flour. However, 1 1/2 cups cake or pastry flour + 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour = 2 and 3/4 cups, not 3 cups. Could you please clarify?
Recipe looks outstanding! Thank you.
Yes of course it's 2 3/4 total. The error was i the original question when it was asked and I didn't catch it. Glad you did.
I have made this recipe a couple of times now and it is full of flavour! Still has the same problem with other vanilla cakes in which the following day it tends to dry out(I tend to stick to chocolate because it holds in moisture.) But I must say, a really delicious recipe!
I find this one does usually do well for 48 hours or so in a sealed cake dome but like many vanilla cakes, even a few minutes overbaking can be a problem. Try our White Velvet Cake if a longer lasting cake is important.
I'm so sad! I love this Vanilla cake recipe. It's my go to for Vanilla cake. Now the sad part. I use my IPad to access the recipe when I'm baking and suddenly I've started getting this weird mobile screen preview. Makes it very hard to work with. 🙁 But again love the cake!
Hey Crystal, we just launched a brand new mobile and Ipad friendly site. Hope you come back and try again. Barry.