An easy Vanilla Cake with a soft and moist crumb and great vanilla flavor. We used our popular Buttercream Frosting here but it’s also fantastic with a Chocolate Frosting. This Vanilla cake recipe is the perfect base for a birthday cake or any special occasion.
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Watch the Easy Vanilla Cake Recipe Video:
This cake really is easy and can even be made ahead. Watch the video tutorial for how to make the perfect vanilla cake and best Buttercream Frosting (which isn’t overly sweet like most American buttercreams).
Why we Love this Vanilla Cake!
Everyone needs a great vanilla cake base and I hope this becomes your new favorite! It’s made from scratch and the combination of ingredients gives it amazing texture and flavor. We used the same base as our famous Vanilla Cupcakes and made this stunning cake. You’ll love the perfectly level cake layers – there’s no need to trim them.
How to Make a Vanilla Cake from Scratch:
Here is a quick visual reference for homemade vanilla cake. Get the full print-friendly recipe below.
- Butter and flour two 9″ cake pans and preheat oven to 350˚F.
- Whisk together dry ingredients.
- With an electric mixer, beat Butter and Sugar 5 minutes.
- Beat in eggs 1 at a time then beat in vanilla.
- Add flour mixture in thirds alternating with buttermilk and mixing between each addition.
- Divide between 2 cake pans and bake at 350˚F for 28-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pans 10 minutes then transfer cakes (we use this cake release tool) to a wire rack and cool completely before frosting.
How to Frost a Cake:
Frosting a cake is the fun part. Once your cake is fully at room temperature, make your Vanilla Buttercream Frosting. We love the vintage vibe of waves in the frosting like we did with our chocolate cake but you can also crumb coat the cake and pipe the frosting onto the cake.
- Place the first cake layer on a cake platter.
- Spread a generous layer of frosting over the top, going to the edges.
- Cover with the second cake layer with the top side down for a perfectly level cake surface.
- Coat the top and sides of the cake with remaining frosting and use an offset spatula or spoon to create waves in the cake.
Add sprinkles if desired. Sprinkles are the easiest way to turn a plain cake into a birthday cake!
Our Best Baking Tips:
- Room temperature ingredients are critical so your batter blends well without separating or becoming grainy.
- Avoid Substitutions! We always recommend trying the recipe as written before experimenting.
- Measure Correctly – check out our post on how we measure ingredients for baking.
- Weigh your pans – we use a digital food scale to make sure the layers are evenly divided.
How to Keep Leftover Cake Moist:
If you have sliced your cake and want to refrigerate leftovers for later, cover the cut side of the cake with plastic wrap, placing it directly onto the cake. This will prevent moisture loss and keep your cake from drying out.
More Top-Rated Cake Recipes:
These are the best-loved and best-reviewed cakes on our site. These are the ones we make most often.
- Chocolate Cake – rich, moist and decadent
- Tiramisu Recipe – coffee-infused Italian dessert
- Tres Leches Cake – the moistest cake you’ll try
- Perfect Cheesecake – with irresistible cherry sauce
- Pumpkin Cake – with the best cream cheese frosting
Vanilla Cake Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 Tbsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp fine salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
- 4 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup buttermilk, or plain kefir, room temperature
- 1 Buttercream Frosting Recipe
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350˚F. Butter and flour two 9" cake pans, tapping out excess flour.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Set flour mixture aside.
- In a large mixing bowl using an electric hand mixer (or stand mixer), beat butter and sugar on medium-high speed for 5 minutes until thick and fluffy, scraping down the bowl as needed.
- Add 4 eggs, one at a time, beating well with each addition then scrape down the bowl. Add 4 tsp vanilla extract and beat to combine.
- Reduce mixer to medium speed and add the flour mixture in thirds alternating with the 1 cup of room temperature buttermilk, allowing the flour and buttermilk to incorporate with each addition. Scrape down the bowl as needed and beat until just combined and smooth.
- Divide batter evenly between 2 prepared cake pans and spread out the batter into the pans smoothing out the tops with a spatula. Bake on the center rack at 350˚F for 28-30 minutes. Rest in pans for 10 minutes then run a knife or thin spatula around the edges to loosen and turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely before applying Vanilla Frosting.
Nutrition Per Serving
Filed Under
If you make this recipe, I’d love to see pics of your creations on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter! Hashtag them #natashaskitchen
Could I add brown sugar to the cake batter? Like 1 cup granulated sugar and 1/2 cup brown sugar. How would that effect the cake.
Hi Adrian! I have not tested that to advise. Generally, it can make the cake more dense and give it a richer, molasses flavor.
I followed this recipe exactly as written. I did not over mix the cake nor did I over bake the cake. It was dry and grainy tasting. I will not be making this recipe again.
Hi Sue! I’m sorry to hear that. This recipe has excellent reviews and we do not have that issue when the recipe is followed correctly. The most common reason for this to happen is overbaking or not measuring your flour correctly. I have a tutorial on how to measure ingredients that shows you how I measured my flour. You can also click on “metric” in the recipe card for the gram conversion and weigh out the flour for the most accurate results. I hope this is helpful for your future baking endeavors.
I keep hearing in these reviews the cake texture isn’t right and the response is always perhaps too much flour was used. Wouldn’t it be better if the recipe said the weight of flour in grams or ounces instead of cups?
Hi Natasha,
LOVE your recipies and made lots of them…
For this one though my buttercream curred 🙁
Keep up the good work.
Thank you.
Ela.
Hi Ela! Do you mean curdled? The frosting I recommended in this recipe uses heavy cream and cream cheese, it’s not buttercream. I’d be more than happy to help troubleshoot if you’d like to clarify the concern and let me know which recipe you tried using.
Hi Natasha,
I’m so confused. The recipe states to use your vanilla buttercream frosting which does not have cream cheese in it. Can you tell me which recipe that is please? Thanks
Hi Ann Marie. In the first paragraph of the blog, you’ll see “buttercream frosting” in red font. If you click on the red font words, they are links. That will direct you to the recipe that I’m referring to.
Hi Natasha! Do you recommend cake flour or is regular flour okay?
Hi Gillian! This recipe uses all-purpose flour.
I’m not a baker, but lately been trying to bake simple things like cookies and cakes. I followed the recipe instructions and this is best cake I’ve made. my husband love raspberry so I put raspberry jam for the filling, and use the buttercream frosting for ice the cake.
Wow, you did a great job! Keep it up and I hope you’ll love all the recipes that you will try from us.
Natasha – I do the baking in our family and recipes are always delicious. Not sure you can help me, but our son just graduated from college and I was hoping to turn your vanilla cake into a marbled sheet cake for his party. Is there any chance you have tips to share before I set off on this type of adaptation? Thanks very much for your channel – You’re the best!
Hi Ken! Thank you so much. I’m glad you are loving my recipes. I haven’t tested this batter with cocoa powder to advise. Cocoa powder absorbs more moisture so I am not sure how it would affect the texture of the cake without making some modifications. If you experiment, please let us know how it turns out.
This recipe made the absolute best cake I’ve ever had. The batter is so smooth and it bakes into a moist a tender crumb. I paired it with your chocolate buttercream and it’s absolutely delicious!! Thank you for all your hard work, your recipes are always fabulous!!
Hi Amanda! Thank you so much. I’m glad you loved this cake. It’s our go-to vanilla cake and we love it! I appreciate the feedback and review.
Can I substitute the butter for oil? How much oil would I need?
Hi Rebecca, I have only tried this specific cake with butter so I can’t advise on the outcome if using oil instead. I didn’t see anyone mentioned using oil in the comments either. I wish I could be more helpful!
I can’t wait to make the cake for Mother Days. Is look so delicious.
I hope it becomes a hit!
I made this cake for my father’s birthday. While the taste is good, the cake is too dense. I don’t think I would make it again.
Hi Teri! It sounds like you could have used too much flour. I recommend watching my tutorial on how to measure flour HERE. Also, don’t over-mix the batter. I hope that helps!
So I followed the directions and mine tastes like cornbread. I’m not sure what happened?
Hi Morgan! I would look over the ingredients and instructions again to make sure you did not miss anything. Make sure you are using all-purpose flour and not substituting it with flour that contains corn. Other causes could be that you are using stale flour or possibly not mixing the batter well enough. You don’t want to over-mix but if you under-mix it can have the consistency of cornbread. I also suggest watching my tutorial on how I measure my flour HERE. I hope that helps.
Hi can I use your cream cheese frosting for this? And can I make a day ahead?
Hi Dina, I imagine that would work! I hope you love it!
Can I make this recipe into a rectangle 13x 9 pan instead of the round 9”?
Hi Erica, I haven’t tried this recipe in that size pan, but I recommend using THIS Adapt Baking Recipes to Fit Different Pan Sizes Guide.
Hello, So make cake layers were a bit dense. Could this have happened because I used unbleached flour or because I overmixed the batter.
Hi Adrian, those can definitely alter the end result. I recommend making the recipe as written.
Hey Natasha!
I plan on making this cake for my daughters birthday, but is there a way I can add sprinkles to the batter to make it Funfetti? Any tips?!? I read on a different recipe to add 1/2 of sprinkles mixed with a tablespoon of flour to help suspend the sprinkles in the batter so they don’t sink to the bottom of the cake?? Thoughts?!? Thanks!
Hi Caitlin! I have not tested it to advise. I think it could work fine. You may try researching to see which sprinkles are best to use that would dissolve easily and bleed into the batter.
I really love baking, especially cakes! Thank you so much for sharing this delicious recipe with us, Natasha K! This is my first time making Vanilla cake actually, and it tasted absolutely perfect! Thank you so much for sharing your impeccable recipes, once again!!
Hi Georgia! That’s wonderful news. I’m so glad you tried this recipe. 🙂
It’s lovely! Thanks for sharing. Vanilla Cake is my favorite (only after cheesecake!) LOL!! I ended up making it though, thanks to your recipe! You make it super easy to understand. Thank you so much again, Natasha K!
Hi Sofia! You’re very welcome. Thank you, I’m glad you enjoy the recipe. 🙂
Cake was overcooked and everything together was too sweet. Definitely not the cake I wanted to present to my husband on his birthday 🙁
Hi Melinda! I’m sorry to hear that. Did you make any substitutions or use a different size pan that could have caused the cake to bake faster? Every oven bakes differently so I highly encourage the use of an internal oven thermometer.
Also, be sure to measure your ingredients correctly.
The colour of vanilla buttercream frosting is bright white in your photos. The actual colour is light beige.
That’s misleading.
Please explain
Thx
HI Barb, if you start with a yellow-tinted butter then the color won’t be quite as bright white. This is why I prefer the cheaper, lighter colored butter for frosting.
I want mine to be pale like yours. I’d love to know what brand of butter you use or recommend
Hi Adrian! I have used several brands. Some of the ones that tend to be lighter in color are: Challenge, Land-O-Lakes, Great value, and Kirkland brand.
Can you make ahead and freeze the cake layers for use later?
Hi Stacy, I bet that could work. Ensure you wrap them well.