My recipe for vanilla cake is super easy. By doctoring up a box cake mix, you can make a moist and delicious cake that everyone will love. This cake also contains buttermilk, a surprising secret ingredient that that makes it light and fluffy. If you want to learn more, keep reading!
Vanilla Cake Easy Recipe Development
Although I love cakes with a lot of flavor, sometimes I want something simple. Cakes with a strong flavor like key lime cake, or with a mix of flavors like carrot cake, are definitely good, but sometimes I want a cake with a calm, subtle flavor. I had a craving for something like this recently, and the first thing that came to mind was vanilla cake.
If you are not familiar with vanilla cake, think about a typical birthday cake in the United States: even though it definitely tastes great, the main flavor is a strong yet also subtle vanilla, the cake itself existing as a way to serve and showcase the frosting. These cakes are usually like and airy, the contrast in textures between the creamy frosting and fluffy cake making the eating experience even more delicious.
Adding Buttermilk for a Fluffy Cake
Since I am constantly trying and inventing new recipes, all of which are full of flavor, it had been a long time since I had last eaten a vanilla cake. I learned a lot about making cakes from developing cake recipes such as Strawberry Cake with Jello, and one of the most important things I learned was the uses of buttermilk in cake recipes. Buttermilk helps to create an acidic environment that interacts with the leavening agent in the cake, helping it to rise tall and be airy. Buttermilk is not the only ingredient that can do this: other acidic things like vinegar, sour cream, and mayonnaise can help to make things like cakes, biscuits, and pancakes be light and airy, too. However, one thing to point out is that although traditional Southern cake recipes like red velvet cake and devil’s food cake usually buttermilk, these cakes do not taste sour. Although there is a point at which too much vinegar or too much buttermilk would make a cake taste sour–think about the flavor profile of sour cream pound cake recipes–do not be afraid if a layer cake recipes calls for a tablespoon of vinegar or a cup of buttermilk: you will notice it in the texture, not the flavor.
Easy Vanilla Cake with Cake Mix
Although you could definitely make a cake from scratch, using cake mix to make my easy vanilla cake recipe makes everything extremely simple. Most of my Southern layer cake recipes start with a box of cake mix, other ingredients then added to doctor up the cake mix in order to create the desired flavor: this vanilla cake is no exception. I started by adding buttermilk to the mix to ensure the light and airy texture. I then added a box of vanilla pudding to add both moisture and flavor, the flavor enhanced even more with the addition of vanilla extract. A few eggs, oil. and a tablespoon of vinegar rounded out the recipe, the minimal number of ingredients showing just how easy this cake is to make.
The cake baked up beautifully, setting itself up to the perfect canvas for baker’s imagination. Although the cake would have been delicious on its own, I decided to frost it with my no butter cream cheese frosting. Even though my decisions turned out to be a great one, I am sure that many types of frosting such as buttercream or chocolate cream cheese would work, too.
Recipe Review
My easy vanilla cake recipe turned out great. The cake itself was light and airy, the buttermilk and vinegar helping to give the cake a lot of lift. As I previously explained, the acidic ingredients were used in moderation, so the cake was not sour at all; in fact, it was definitely sweet, so not including a bit of tang may have produced a cake that would have bordered on being overly sweet. The sweetness of the cake itself contrasted very nicely with the tanginess of the cream cheese frosting. Overall, I was very pleased with this cake because it had a subtly deliciousness that I remembered from my childhood birthday cakes. Although traditional birthday cakes with buttercream frosting are good, this cake really stood out because of the contrast between sweet and sour flavors. This cake would be great as a blank canvas for decoration, so adding sprinkles or elaborate frosting decorations would would great. Considering this, I highly recommend that you try this recipe if you are looking for a change of pace from traditional birthday cake or vanilla cake recipes.
Vanilla Cake Easy Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 15.25 ounce box of white cake mix
- 1 small box instant vanilla pudding (3.4 oz)
- 3 large eggs
- 1/4 cup canola oil
- 1 cup buttermilk (240 g)
- 2 Tablespoons water (30 g)
- 1 Tablespoon white vinegar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in a large bowl.
- Mix with an electric mixer for 2-3 minutes (however, I am sure you could mix by hand, too).
- Pour batter into 2 prepared cake pans
- Bake at 325 F for 35 minutes.
- Remove from pans, cool, and then add frosting. I used my no butter cream cheese frosting.
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