White Velvet Cake
White Velvet Cake. Developed from an outstanding Red Velvet Cake recipe, this white cake is a perfectly moist and tender crumbed cake that would make an ideal birthday cake.
Originally published October 2012.
Many people search for the perfect white cake and this White Velvet Cake is a cousin to our incredibly popular Red Velvet Cake recipe. As a reader recently pointed out, many people are sensitive to artificial colours.
A great buttermilk cake without the added dye is not only a great idea but a completely delicious one too. I've been wanting to develop a great white cake recipe anyway.
I always think a bakery bought birthday cake when I think of white cake, probably with colourful candy sprinkles on top. Any kid, young or old would love to have this one as their next birthday cake.
This turned out to be an outstandingly moist white cake recipe and was perfectly paired with sweet fluffy marshmallow frosting. It is really a cooked meringue frosting that my kids absolutely love.
I've frosted this cake with Marshmallow Frosting but any good vanilla frosting is great on this cake. Find the frosting recipe with our Black and White Cake. 
A very popular White Velvet Cake.
As with many of my baking experiments, I brought this one to the office, where I was the Pied Piper of gateau. People literally followed me down the hall to our break room as I carried it in.
I think this one now holds the office record for devouring speed. It disappeared in mere minutes.
If you like this recipe be sure to check out our incredibly popular recipe for Yellow Cake too. It gets rave reviews every time. People say it's the best homemade yellow cake they've ever tried. Check out the comments on the recipe post.
Can't get enough velvet cake?
Be sure to check out our very popular Velvet Cake Collection.
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White Velvet Cake
White Velvet Cake - developed from an outstanding Red Velvet Cake recipe, this white cake is a perfectly moist and tender crumbed cake that would make an ideal birthday cake.
Ingredients
- 1 ¼ cups sifted all purpose flour
- 1 ½ cups sifted cake flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ cups sugar
- ⅔ cup vegetable oil
- ⅓ cup vegetable shortening at room temperature
- 3 tablespoons good quality vanilla extract, if you want pure white use clear vanilla extract
- 3 large eggs
- 1 ½ cups buttermilk
Instructions
- Sift together both flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt and sugar. Set aside.
- Grease and flour 2 nine inch round cake pans and line the bottom with 2 circles of parchment paper.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer beat together the vegetable oil, shortening and vanilla. Beat well at high speed with whisk attachment until light and fluffy
- Beat the eggs in one at a time.
- Fold in the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk.
- I always add dry ingredients in three divisions and liquid ingredients in 2 divisions. It is very important to begin and end the additions with the dry ingredients. Do not over mix the batter. As soon as it has no lumps in the batter, pour into the two prepared 9 inch cake pans.
- Bake at 325 degrees F for 30-35 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool in the pans for 10 minutes before turning out onto wire racks to cool completely.
- I've frosted this cake with Marshmallow Frosting but any good vanilla frosting is great on this cake. Find the frosting recipe with our Black and White Cake.
Notes
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.
Nutrition Information
Yield
16Serving Size
1 sliceAmount Per Serving Calories 298Total Fat 15gSaturated Fat 3gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 11gCholesterol 38mgSodium 275mgCarbohydrates 38gFiber 0gSugar 20gProtein 4g
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.
Just made this cake..used vanilla and almond(watkins)...only used regular flour...however, I sifted ingredients three times and tweeked the oil/shortening part. LOVE it!!!!!! Awesome recipe. Cake was very moist and went excellent with a light whipped buttercream! Would have loved a white cake though....
Could I just use srf (self rising flour) with the cake flour, I have had a hard time with cake flour so stop using it, but I see rave reviews and would like to try this receipe, looking for a good moist white cake and to everyone saying that their cake is not coming out pure white just substitute (2) egg whites (1) egg. Oh I do a lot of wedding and custom cakes, you say it's to soft, so how would substitute anything
Do not use self rising flour. The cake flour is crucial to the texture of this cake.
I plan on making this on the weekend and was wanting to know of I could use coconut oil instead of shortening
The texture of this cake depends on the firm texture of solid shortening, so maybe solid coconut oil?
How long would you bake these for cupcakes? This looks amazing! Thank you!
Test them after 15 minutes.
I need to make a large sheet cake...I was going to do buttercream icing with rossettes...will the cake hold that?
Should be fine.
Can you use lard for the veg. Shortening?thank you linda
Never tried it but might work.
Made this today and it's a great cake recipe!
not to be a debbie downer here but this cake is not moist nor is it good, it ha the texture of cornbread and is dry i will stick to my grandmothers recipe.
You've obviously done something very wrong with this cake. Everybody raves about the moist texture of this cake. I have no doubt you made a mistake somewhere. Substitutions are also not recommended for this cake. So often people make these sorts of statements when they completely change the recipe.
I made this cake and found the texture no to be great. I just read the recipe again to see if I did anything wrong. I added the ingredients with the mixer. Should I have just folded the dry ingredients by hand? I will definitely give this recipe another try after reading all the positive comments. I used your Marshmallow Frosting recipe to frost the cake. It is definitely a keeper for sure. Passed the yummy test in our house. So much so, everyone was cutting edge pieces with all the frosting. We were left with a cake with no frosting on the sides. lol I kept the cake in a cake carrier and the frosting stayed so soft. I ran out of room and stuck the cake in the freezer for a few hours and it came out with frosting still soft. I can't wait for your new cookbook to come out. Happy Baking !
Very strange indeed because the soft, moist texture is what the cake is all about. You've definitely gone wrong somewhere. Try folding the ingredients in by hand next time. You may have overmixed it and deflated the cake. Hope you have better luck next time. This cake always turns out well for me as do all the other Velvet Cake recipes here.
I was a little skeptical when it called for both shortening and oil that it would be too oily. Just pulled them out of oven, look (had to taste some from the top) good! Only two things I did different was sift all ingredients together after measured and baked in 2 -10 inch rounds which took less baking time. Anxious to see them de panned and how they hold up with icing! I normally do Swiss meringue butter cream but I do want to try your marshmallow icing. I've tried a couple and haven't had the best luck. Does your recipe hold up well if I was to do it tomorrow night and the cake is to be served Friday? I also did use farm fresh eggs and was expecting it to be more yellow and it actually wasn't! Great recipe! Thanks!
10 inch pans!! Really? I would figure that turned out quite flat. Did you double the recipe?
Hi - mine is in the oven now - will post a review. My concern: I made 'cake flour' with corn starch, old school. That shouldn't matter - right? And just a quick taste of the batter has me very nervous. All other ingredients were exact and followed your instructions to the letter. Stand by for further developments! (Should the batter taste not-so-good?) Perhaps my hips - I mean lips - just miss the butter taste!
I expect it might indeed matter. This cake is all about the texture. I don't recommend substitutions.
Hi in my 4 years of professional home-baking I have never left a review because all recipes have required me to tweak them till there's no semblance to the original recipe. Yours however was exactly what I was looking for with a beautiful, tight, velvety crumb and moist to boot! Thanks a million!!
Thanks so much Rose. I knew I was on to a winner with this recipe. The Lemon Velvet version is just as popular!
Hi Barry, I'm just wondering if this cake would stand up to being used for a wedding cake? I'm doing a "Naked" wedding cake with 3 tiers with 3 cakes for each tier (9 in total). I'll be working with 12", 9" and 6" cake pans. 🙂
It's a very light textured cake. It will not take a lot of wieght.
I'd be keen to know how you get on with this stacked as I am looking for a white layer to put in a tri coloured wedding cake in a few months.
Not recommended for stacking above two layers. It is not a dense cake; quite soft actually and would compress under excess weight.
Does this cake get hard in the fridge? i am looking for a cake that stays soft when cold but am not sure if crisco gets hard like butter does?
I find it stays quite soft.
can i make them as cupcakes? if yes do i add more purpose flour?
People have told me they have used it as cupcakes and it was fine.
Hi Barry!
My partner is from CBS and we'll be flying out there in a few weeks! We currently live in NB. So interesting you're on The Rock 🙂
I used this recipe last night for a birthday cake today. I used butter instead of shortening and AP flour, everything else I followed. I think this may be the answer to the cupcake question? When I leveled out the two layers, I assesses the firmness and I'd be comfortable making cupcakes with this recipe. Cupcakes are more my expertise! I'm the cupcake go-to at our local farmer's market! Just thought I'd share my thoughts.
Thanks for the info. Sounds like it worked well if you want a denser end result. This recipe was developed to be a softer cake. Some people do like it for cupcakes too.