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
If you make this recipe, I’d love to see pics of your creations on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter! Hashtag them #natashaskitchen
Natasha Kravchuk
Hi! I'm Natasha Kravchuk. Here you'll find delicious, trusted recipes with easy step-by-step photos and videos. 
This was a wonderful recipe! The kefir addition was terrific. Thanks for sharing 🙏
You’re welcome, Lisa!
this is cornbread. the driest, most sugarless “cake” ive ever tasted. i wasted 5 hours of my life. this recipe deserves to be put in the #BURNBOOK
Hi Fiona! That definitely doesn’t sound like what this cake should turn out like. The most common reasons for that happening would be the temperature of your ingredients, how the ingredients are measured, and how the batter was mixed.
The butter needs to be softened, not cold. The eggs need to be room temperature. If your ingredients are too cold, the proper emulsion will not happen, and it will affect the texture of the cake.
Please watch my process again to see how I mixed my ingredients. You don’t want to over mix or under mix your batter. Lastly, it is very common that flour is not measured correctly. Please watch my tutorial on How to measure ingredients . Using too much flour will result in a dry and very dense cake. It also helps to invest in an Internal oven thermometer (Amazon affiliate link) to ensure your oven is calibrated correctly. If it’s running hot, it will dry out your cakes. I hope that helps troubleshoot.
Does this recipe need baking soda in addition to baking powder to interact with the buttermilk?
Hi Kelly! No, I do not use baking soda in this. The baking powder works just fine and the buttermilk helps with the texture, moisture, and flavor of this cake. I hope you love the recipe!
This cake is Okay. I came here for reviews and found a lot of the same thing I disliked about the cake which is mostly that it was dense. I may try it a third time to see if I get different results, but I do agree that measurements should also be given in grams since the density of the cake is such a common issue. Will go back to using a different recipe.
Hi Emilia! If you click on “metric” in the recipe card, it will convert the ingredients to metric. The most common reasons for a dense/dry cake are using too much flour, over-mixing, or over-baking. For those who do not have a food scale, I highly encourage watching my tutorial on How to measure ingredients to ensure accuracy in measuring. I hope you have better results if you try again.
Amazing cake!!!! Perfect! Everyone loved it. I will def make this one again. Thank you!
You’re very welcome, Emily! Thank you for you lovely comment!
Hi Natasha,
Thank you for the wonderful recipe! The cake always come
out great and we love it. This time the taste is excellent but the cake stuck to pan in the middle and sides and was very crumbly. Not sure what did I do wrong. I did prepare the pans with butter and flour. Do you think parchment paper works better here?
Thank you again!
Hi Mikki! It could be the quality of the pan and how it distributed heat, it could also be that it didn’t get coated well in a few spots. Yes, parchment paper would help.
Thank you Natasha!
They are 6 inch aluminum pans which I have been using for years. I will try to coat them better and see.
Hi, question! If I wanted to add some Baileys to the cake, can I just add it in or would I have to change any of the other (wet) ingredients amount-wise? How much liquor would you recommend?
Hi Katharina! I have never tested to know how to advise. Let us know if you experiment.
Hi Natasha, I’m a seasoned baker of chiffon cakes. I wanted to bake a Vanilla cake for a birthday. I tried 2 other recipes but the top always feels damp f sticky after cooling.
I will try your recipes soon but can you advise me what could be the problem?
Love your bana cak recipes.
It’s hard to say. It could be the recipe, the humidity in the room, the process of cooling the cakes. Sorry I can’t be more help. I hope you love this recipe.
I’ve made this vanilla cake and the cupcake recipes with great success. I would love to make lemon instead of vanilla. Any suggestions? Thanks!!
Hi Shari! I’m so glad you love it. You should be able to use lemon extract or lemon zest in this recipe to change up the flavor. I haven’t done it myself to provide the amounts so you’ll likely need to experiment to reach the desired lemon flavor. Let us know how it turns out.
Hey Natasha –
I tried baking this today. The texture turned out amazingly good. It’s super soft and moist.
I just have one question. Why does the cake taste like pancake? I baked 2 batches – that’s 4 layers. Both batches taste the same. Followed the recipe as is. My 9 year also pointed the same.
HI Jeba, I never really thought they tasted like pancakes, although vanilla cupcakes have similar ingredients buttermilk pancakes. Did you possibly leave out the vanilla?
I did not. I’m sure I added vanilla. May be it’s because I make a lot of pancakes 😅 I’m yet to frost the cake. I’ll be doing it today. I’ll let you how it tastes with the frosting. Thanks for your reply.
Just a comment, if your flour isn’t fresh or past the expiration date it can cause problems .
Comments on the ( Vanilla Cake)
Hi Natasha,
Let me start off by saying that I simply love every single recipe that I’ve made of yours. They are perfection. This recipe was the very first of many that didn’t come out as expected. The cake was very dense. I made sure that I followed the recipe to the t. I know I measured correctly and didn’t over bake. I used a stand mixer, but I didn’t think that should’ve been a problem. (unless it was over mixed?) Anyway, I still think you are THE BEST out there!
Hi Rhonda! I’m so sorry to hear that. Over-mixing the batter will result in dense and gummy cupcakes. Using too much flour will cause dense cupcakes as well. Did you measure your flour the way I recommend to do it here in my How to measure ingredients tutorial?
Yes, I always measure the flour that way now. Thanks for responding. Can’t wait for your cookbook.
Hello Natasha.Im reading your comments and some say the cake was dense.Im also a baker and I have made this recipe dozens of times.My cake was perfect.it was extremely moist.Never had any complaints.Everyone loves this recipe.Maybe some of the people who did this recipe either missed an ingredient or put too much of something or simply can’t bake.But again,this cake was very moist and absolutely amazing.I’ve made several of your recipes.Keep up the great work.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment and review, Nat! The culprit often tends to be due to a measuring mishap or an elevation change.
Best vanilla cake I’ve ever made – this is now my go-to! I did play a little with the buttermilk ingredient. I had neither buttermilk nor kefir on hand, but I did have plain greek yogurt. I made a curdled milk (milk + lemon juice as buttermilk substitute), and combined that 1:1 with the plain greek yogurt, for the 1 cup required in the recipe. It turned out great! I may start doing this more in recipes, depending on what it is. Thanks for this recipe! Your website is one of my 2 faves for cooking and baking, and the videos are fabulous.
Hi Jane, great to hear that it worked so well! Thanks so much for sharing that with us as a lot of people are asking for substitutions, that’s helpful.
I made it for a party the other day, and the cake was surprisingly dense. It also lacked the signature yellow color. We all decided that it was little too sweet. I’m wondering if it is a dense cake or if I over-beat it. I weigh my ingredients. Thanks!!
Hi Sarah! I’m sorry to hear that. Over-mixing the batter can result in a dense cake, or using too much flour. But if you are measuring your flour in grams then that wouldn’t be the problem. The yellow tint in the batter is dependent on the eggs and butter used. Fresh home eggs have a darker yolk, and different brands of butter are lighter more yellow than others.
My cake batter came out very thick but didn’t really pour that well. I watched the video and yours looked thick as well but still able to pour. Did I do something wrong?
Hi Adrian! It could be that you are using too much flour. It’s best to fluff the flour and use a spoon to fill your cup and not scoop it out with your measuring cup. Watch my tutorial on how to measure ingredients. I hope that helps.
Hi, why do we add the flour on medium speed? I thought that when adding flour to any recipe you should be mixing the flour on low speed so you don’t activate the gluten-making the end product dense/tough. Or does it not matter in this case since we are alternating it with a liquid(buttermilk).
Hi Adrian! Low or medium speed will work. That is correct, you do not want to over-mix-allow it to beat just until it’s combined and smooth.
Hi Natasha, I have not made the cake yet but I’m excited to, I have one question, how long can the cake be stored for to keep it’s fresh moist texture? I was going to make this cake a few days before our get together. Thanks!
Hi Emily, this cake can be made ahead; I have made it up to two days in advance. After it is assembled, you want to refrigerate the cake (covered with a cake cover or large inverted pot). It will be softer at room temperature, so let the cake sit out a little before serving.
Natasha, I live in Mexico and buttermilk isn’t sold here in the supermarkets, as this ingredient is not employed in Mexican cuisine. Can I use whole milk instead?
Plain kefir will also work well instead of buttermilk. You can also make your own buttermilk at a ratio of whole milk to 1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice. Combine and let it sit 10 minutes to curdle then stir and use.
Hi Natasha! I’m sure this is a great recipe but I always struggle with my cake being too dense. I am not quite sure why but I make sure not to the over beat the batter and make sure my ingredient’s are at room temperature! Are they any ways to prevent this?
Hi Serene! The other thing that comes to mind is that you’re using too much flour. Be sure to measure ingredients correctly. If you scoop the flour out of the bin, you could be using too much. I hope that helps.
Thankyou so much! I tried this recipe and it turned out great. Definitely something I will make again!
Awesome! We’re happy to hear that you loved our Vanilla Cake Recipe a lot!
hello! i was wondering what i should convert the measurements to in order to make this cake with 3 – 6 inch cake pans?
Hi Sofie! I have not tested this in different size pans to advise on exact measurements, I’m sorry. You will also have to watch them in the oven, as they will bake faster.