moist vanilla cake
soft and moist classic vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream frosting
baked in April 2026
yield: 10-12 servings
prep time: 30 minutes
cook time: 30 minutes
difficulty level: medium
Ingredients
Cake
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon cooking salt
- 4 large eggs (50 – 55g each), at room temperature
- 1 and 1/2 cups caster sugar / superfine sugar (granulated ok too)
- 1/2 (1 stick) cup unsalted butter , cut into 1/2” cubes
- 1 cup milk, full fat
- 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 3 teaspoons vegetable or canola oil
Frosting
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
- 1 lb (500 g) soft powdered sugar, sifted
- 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 – 4 Tablespoons heavy whipping cream, to adjust thickness, if needed
Directions
For the cake:
- Preheat oven to 350°F for 20 minutes before starting the batter. Place shelf in the middle of the oven.
- Grease 2 8” cake pans with butter, then line with parchment / baking paper. Best to use cake pan without loose base, if you can.
- Whisk flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Set aside.
- Beat eggs for 30 seconds on speed 6 of a Stand Mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, or hand beater.
- With the beater still going, pour the sugar in over 45 seconds.
- Then beat for 7 minutes on speed 8, or until tripled in volume and white.
- While egg is beating, place butter and milk in a heatproof jug and microwave 2 minutes on high to melt butter (or use stove).
- When the egg is whipped, add the flour in 3 batches beating for 5 seconds on Speed 1 in between each addition. Once all the flour is in, beat for another 5 – 10 seconds until you can't see any flour, then stop beating the cake batter straight away.
- Pour hot milk, vanilla and oil into the now empty flour bowl.
- Add about 1 and 1/2 cups (2 ladles or so) of the cake batter into the hot milk (don't need to be 100% accurate with amount). Use a whisk to mix until smooth – you can be vigorous here. Will look foamy.
- Turn beater back on Speed 1 then pour the hot milk mixture into the cake batter over 15 seconds, then turn beater off.
- Scrape down sides and base of bowl. Beat on Speed 1 for 10 seconds – batter should now be smooth and pourable.
- Pour batter into pans – 560g batter per pan.
- Bang each cake pan on the counter 3 times to knock out big bubbles.
- Bake 30 minutes or until golden and toothpick inserted into centre comes out clean.
- Remove from oven. Cool in cake pans for 15 minutes, then gently turn out onto cooling racks. If using as layer cakes, cool upside down – slight dome will flatten perfectly. Level cake = neat layers.
For the frosting:
- Beat butter with paddle attachment in stand mixer for 3 minutes on high until it changes from yellow to almost white, and it becomes fluffy and creamy.
- Add powdered sugar gradually in 3 lots, beating slowly (to avoid a powder storm) then once mostly incorporated, beat on high for a full 3 minutes until fluffy.
- Add vanilla and heavy cream, then beat for a further 30 seconds. Use heavy cream only if needed to make it lovely and soft but still holds its form (eg for piping).
- Once cake layers are fully cool, decorate with frosting.
