The Best Vanilla Cake (2024)

Published: Jun 30, 2020 Updated: Jul 28, 2020 by Alison Hope · This post may contain affiliate links · 61 Comments

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This vanilla cake is moist, light, fluffy, flavorful and seriously delicious. It’s also the easiest vanilla cake you’ll ever make.

I’ve been testing this vanilla cake recipe for weeks now, as I wanted something that would be super easy and quick. For me that means using oil, not butter, so we can make it in one bowl and don’t have to use a mixer.

And this recipe is it! It’s a simple one-bowl recipe and has all the vanilla flavor you could dream of in a cake with a perfect texture. This will soon be your favorite vanilla cake recipe!

And if you love cake, well our totally divine chocolate cake is a winner too, so is our red velvet cake and our carrot cake.

How To Make Vanilla Cake

Full instructions and measurements can always be found in the recipe card at the bottom of the post. This is a summary of the process to go along with the process photos.

Sift all purpose flour into a mixing bowl and add white sugar, baking powder and salt.
Add milk, eggs, oil and vanilla extract and mix into a batter. You can use a hand whisk to give it a quick whisk to remove any lumps but don’t overmix.

Divide the batter evenly between two 9-inch cake pans (sprayed with non-stick spray and lined with parchment paper).
Bake for 30 minutes at 350°F or until a toothpick inserted into the center of one of the cakes comes out clean.
Allow the cakes to cool for a few minutes before removing them from the cake pans and placing them onto a wire cooling rack.
Let them cool completely before frosting.

The Frosting

We frosted this cake with our vanilla buttercream frosting, we just increased the recipe by a quarter because we wanted the frosting to be nice and thick!

If you want to mix and match your cakes and frostings, then a chocolate buttercream frosting would also be delicious on this cake.

Recipe FAQ

Can you make this dairy-free?

You can EASILY make this vanilla cake dairy-free by using a plant-based milk such as soy milk or almond milk instead of the dairy milk. Of course then you’ll also need to use a dairy-free butter product for the frosting such as Earth Balance Buttery Sticks.

Can you make cupcakes from this recipe?

This recipe will make around 18-24 cupcakes depending on how high you fill the liners. We have a recipe for a perfect 12 vanilla cupcakes though!

What size cake pans are needed for this recipe?

This recipe makes a two layer 9-inch cake OR a three layer 8-inch cake. You can also do a two layer 8-inch cake but the layers are quite fat.

Storing and Freezing

Keep your cake stored in an airtight cake container at room temperature where it will stay fresh for a few days or in the fridge where it will keep for up to a week.

The frosted or unfrosted cake can be frozen for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the fridge and then bring to room temperature before enjoying.

More Cakes and Cupcakes

The Most Divine Chocolate Cake
The Best Carrot Cake
Red Velvet Cake
Vanilla Cupcakes
Crazy Cake
Red Velvet Cupcakes

Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below.

Vanilla Cake

This vanilla cake is moist, light, fluffy, flavorful and seriously delicious. It's also the easiest vanilla cake you'll ever make.

4.87 from 45 votes

Print Pin Rate

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Diet: Vegetarian

Prep Time: 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes minutes

Servings: 12

Calories: 731kcal

Author: Alison

Ingredients

▢ 2 and ½ cups All Purpose Flour Correctly Measured*
▢ 1 and ½ cups White Granulated Sugar
▢ 3 tsp Baking Powder
▢ ¾ tsp Salt
▢ 1 cup Milk
▢ 2 Large Eggs
▢ ¾ cup Canola Oil Or Vegetable Oil
▢ 3 tsp Vanilla Extract

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

▢ 1 and ¼ cup Butter Lightly Salted, Softened
▢ 5 cups Powdered Sugar
▢ 5 Tbsp Milk
▢ 2 tsp Vanilla Extract

US Customary – Metric

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C) and spray two 9-inch cake pans with non-stick spray and line the bottoms with circles of parchment paper.
Sift the all purpose flour into a mixing bowl and add the sugar, baking powder and salt.
Add the milk, eggs, oil and vanilla extract and mix into a batter. Do a quick whisk with a hand whisk to remove any lumps. Don't overmix.
Divide the batter evenly between the two prepared cake pans.
Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of one of the cakes comes out clean.
Allow the cakes to cool for a few minutes before removing them from the cake pans and placing them onto a wire cooling rack.
Let them cool completely before frosting.

Vanilla Buttercream:

Add the softened butter to the bowl of your stand mixer, start at slow speed and gradually increase speed. Let it whip for until your butter is smooth and pale in color.
Add the powdered sugar, milk and vanilla extract and beat for a few minutes until very fluffy and smooth.

Video

Notes

Measure your flour correctly using the spoon and level method – spoon the flour into your measuring cup and level off the top with a knife. Don’t pack the flour into the cup and don’t scoop it. Alternatively, weigh your flour on a food scale (click the link below the ingredients that says ‘metric’ to get the correct weight of each ingredient).
The butter for the frosting should be lightly salted. If yours is unsalted then you can add ⅛ tsp salt to the recipe.
Make It Dairy-Free: You can make this cake dairy-free by using a non-dairy milk option such as soy milk or almond milk. To do the same for the frosting, use a dairy-free vegan butter option such as Earth Balance Buttery Sticks.
You can make this in two 9-inch cake pans or three 8-inch cake pans. It also works in two 8-inch cake pans but the layers are quite thick.
Keep the cake in an airtight container at room temperature for a few days or in the fridge for up to a week.

Nutrition

DID YOU MAKE THIS RECIPE?Rate it & leave your feedback in the comments section below, or tag @gimmethatflavor on Instagram and hashtag it #gimmethatflavor

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About Alison Hope

Hi I'm Alison, I'm the voice and cook behind Gimme That Flavor. I am a big time foodie and probably cooking up a storm in my kitchen right now! I'm also a cat mom. And a sweet tooth. Binge watcher of TV shows. Terrible sleeper always staying up too late....Find out more about me here.

Gimme That Flavor is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. This site may contain some of these links to Amazon.com. If you make a purchase through one of those links, Gimme That Flavor will receive a small commission from the purchase at no additional cost to you.

Reader Interactions

Comments

Daphne Duncan
April 26, 2024 at 6:05 pm

Hi ,I was going to make this but then found all measurements were in cups.I’m from the UK and we measure by grams.It would be nice if you could also do gram measures in brackets.Thank you.
Reply
- Nadine @ Gimmethatflavor
  May 02, 2024 at 12:01 pm
  
  Hi Daphne, you can just scroll down and see ant the bottom of the ingredients the is an option to change the ingredients measurements from US to metric.
  Reply
Jo
March 24, 2024 at 8:18 pm

This was a very good white cake. As much as I usually cut down on sugar, this cake needs the full 1.5 cups so that it’s moist. I’ve made many home made cakes that have been quite heavy, dense and gummy, this one was none of those things. It was airy and delicious. My husband loved it for his birthday and I will definitely make it again.
Reply
- Nadine @ Gimmethatflavor
  April 19, 2024 at 8:12 am
  
  Yay! Thanks so much for your awesome review Jo!
  Reply
sara lengel
January 20, 2024 at 1:27 pm
See Also
Classic Pound Cake Recipe

Batter comes out too thick when measured perfectly .
Reply
- Nadine @ Gimmethatflavor
  February 07, 2024 at 8:56 am
  
  Not sure what happened there Sara. When we measured the ingredients perfectly, it turned out perfect.
  Reply
Jenny Farrell
January 13, 2024 at 9:31 am

Really easy to make. A great cake to make if you are short on butter.
Great flavour
Reply
- Nadine @ Gimmethatflavor
  January 18, 2024 at 12:35 pm
  
  Thanks for your review Jenny!
  Reply
Jodi
January 13, 2024 at 8:04 am

hi there. hope you’re well.
I’ve made this cake a few weeks ago for the family at home and it’s came out wonderful. My grandmothers birthday is coming up and she wants me to make her like a 4-6 layer cake but 6-inch. I just wanted to know how much layers comes out of one batch?
thank you in advance
jodi
Reply
- Nadine @ Gimmethatflavor
  January 18, 2024 at 12:41 pm
  
  Hi Jodi. You should be able to get about 3 x 6 inch layers from one batch. Just make sure you keep an eye on them when baking as the baking time will differ than when baking in 9 inch cake pans.
  Reply
Kaï
January 11, 2024 at 12:15 pm

Good flavor but even after reducing the sugar to 1 cup I still found it way too sweet. My cake also came out quite doughy inside.
Reply
- Nadine @ Gimmethatflavor
  January 18, 2024 at 12:37 pm
  
  The texture will change when you remove the sugar that helps make the cake moist.
  Reply
DBB
January 07, 2024 at 3:59 pm

This is a wonderful homemade cake! I reduced the sugar to 1 cup and it was still plenty sweet. Other than that, I followed the recipe exactly and baked in a 9×13 metal pan for 35 minutes. I like this cake made with oil so much more than ones made with butter. I usually bake goodies with whole wheat flour and low sugar, but my grandchild requested a more conventional birthday cake and this cake is the one. Keeper recipe! I would love to know how to intensify the vanilla flavor.
Reply
- Nadine @ Gimmethatflavor
  January 10, 2024 at 9:48 am
  
  Thanks so much for sharing and for your lovely review! You could maybe try using pure vanilla extract or vanilla beans to intensify the flavor.
  Reply
Sammie
November 06, 2023 at 9:46 am

truth be told I did not think this would work but it did and it turned out amazing 🤩. thanks for sharing. I made two cakes blueberry flavour and pinacolada flavour. and they were awesome 👍🏾
the sugar was a bit much for me and I reduced it to 150g and was still perfect.
Reply
- Nadine @ Gimmethatflavor
  November 07, 2023 at 10:36 am
  
  So happy to hear you enjoyed the recipe Sammie! Thanks so much for your great review!
  Reply
Mokgothu sonia
October 31, 2023 at 11:52 am

👌👌👌👌👌❤️❤️
Reply
Juliana
October 19, 2023 at 12:37 pm

I tried to make this recipe, for some reason my batter was thick instead of runny like yours.
What did I do wrong?
Reply
- Nadine @ Gimmethatflavor
  October 20, 2023 at 8:21 am
  
  Hi Juliana, I’m not sure. You could have accidentally measured either too much flour or too little milk. Did you weigh your flour or did you use a cup? Did you measure your milk with a measuring jug or cup?
  Reply
  - Sweena
    November 04, 2023 at 4:02 am
    
    I am having the same issue. I think I measured correctly ,, 🤔
    Reply
    - Nadine @ Gimmethatflavor
      November 07, 2023 at 10:40 am
      
      We’re not sure why this may have happened, as we tested the recipe multiple times and the batter came out the same consistency as shown in the video. However, if the batter is too thick, you can add about a 1/4 cup more milk to thin it out.
Sheila
October 16, 2023 at 6:20 pm

Came out great and I only used one egg! Simple to the point. Thanks
Reply
- Nadine @ Gimmethatflavor
  October 18, 2023 at 10:07 am
  
  Happy to hear you enjoyed the recipe Sheila!
  Reply