Name: Moist Vanilla Cake
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 65 min
Ingredients: 440 g self-raising flour; 360 g butter; 280 g castor sugar; 1 tsp baking powder; ¼ tsp salt; 4 eggs; 240 ml milk; 2 tsp vanilla essence; 600 g icing sugar; 300 g butter; ½ tsp vanilla essence; 2 tbsp milk (optional)

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I love this super moist vanilla cake. I call it super moist because that’s what this cake is all about. It has a wonderfully moist and fluffy texture and tastes so good when layered with buttercream!

If anyone is looking for a simple or easy homemade vanilla cake recipe from scratch, I would definitely recommend this vanilla layer cake recipe.

A round moist vanilla cake covered in white buttercream with pink and maroon rosettes and green leaves. A slice of the cake is cut out onto a white plate. — Super Moist Vanilla Cake - Perfect for Birthdays too!

Firstly, this classic vanilla cake recipe requires only the basic ingredients you would need to make a cake. The cake is made using self-raising flour, butter, sugar, eggs, milk, and vanilla essence, and coupled with a pinch of salt and some baking powder, you get a wonderfully moist and fluffy, classic vanilla cake.

Secondly, the steps to make this vanilla layer cake are very easy, you just add the ingredients one after another and continue mixing until the batter is ready, before baking it.

Thirdly, the vanilla cake texture is not only soft and moist, it is also pretty solid and so works beautifully for stacking into tiered cakes and carving.

How to Make
Notes
Like this moist cake recipe? Here are my other posts you might want to check out
Recipe (Printable)

How to Make

Ingredients

The main ingredients for this moist vanilla cake are as follows with the full details in the recipe card below:

Self-raising flour + baking powder + salt
Butter
Castor sugar
Eggs
Milk
Vanilla essence

And the buttercream is made up of the following:

Icing sugar
Butter
Vanilla essence
Milk (optional)

Baking the cake

Start by measuring all your vanilla cake ingredients separately. Make sure butter and sugar are at room temperature. Place butter in a large bowl and beat until it's light and creamy. Add in the castor sugar and beat until the mixture turns light and fluffy. For the measurement given in the recipe below, this should take about 2 to 3 minutes. Scrap the sides of the bowl halfway through the creaming process to make sure there is no butter left on the sides of the bowl.
After that, add the eggs in, one at a time. And with each addition, beat them well and make sure they are all incorporated before adding more into the vanilla batter. The next process is adding the flour and milk into the vanilla cake batter. Do it alternately, starting with about one-third of the flour. Fold it in with a large spatula, followed by half of the milk. Repeat the process and finally end the last batch of flour. Make sure the flour is all well folded in before adding in the liquid.
And finally, add in the vanilla essence. Give the vanilla cake batter a good mix and pour it into prepared tins.
Bake these vanilla cakes for about 40 to 45 minutes at your normal baking temperature. Remove the cake layers from the oven and let them cool in the tins for about 5 minutes. Turn them over onto wire racks (facing upright) to cool completely before decorating. For the recipe measure below, I made the moist vanilla layer cakes in two 7 inches round cake tins and layered them further with a knife after baking. You can also divide the batter into four 7 inches round cake tins and if you do, reduce the baking temperature to 17 to 20 minutes.

Decorating the cake

Poster for decorating a cake with buttercream

To assemble this awesomely moist and fluffy homemade vanilla cake, start by leveling and layering the cakes. Since I made mine in only 2 cake pans, I layered each tier into 2 so that I got 4 layers of cake in total.
Apply buttercream between each cake layer and stack the layers up. Follow that by giving the vanilla layer cake a thin crumb coat. Place the crumb-coated cake in the fridge for about 20 minutes for the buttercream crumb coat to set.
Remove from the fridge and apply the final layer of buttercream with your palette knife. Start with the top and move to the sides. For this design, it is not necessary to smooth frost the cake, so it is generally a very simple and quick buttercream cake decorating idea. Nevertheless, eyeball to make sure the icing is evenly applied and there are no parts of the cake that look bulging with icing.

To complete the moist vanilla cake decoration, I randomly added simple rosettes in Wilton Burgundy and Rose Petal pink using star piping tip 21. The leaves were tinted with Wilton Juniper Green and piped with leaf tip 352. I completed the decoration with a buttercream pearl border, piped using round tip 12.

A moist vanilla cake covered in white buttercream with pink and maroon rosettes and green leaves. Cake is on a white cake stand. — ***Super Moist Vanilla Cake***

Notes

Make sure all ingredients are at room temperature

Make sure the butter and eggs are at room temperature. Using them straight out of the fridge can result in your cake batter curdling. If that happens (normally after you have added in the eggs), add flour in small increments until the batter is no more curdled before adding in the milk.
But bear in mind to not over mix the batter after adding in the flour for your cake with not be as soft as it should.

Sift the flour to aerate it

Sift flour and baking powder at least twice. Sifting helps to aerate it which in turn helps the cake to rise well during baking.

Substitute for self raising flour

If you do not have self raising flour, you can substitute with all purpose flour mixed with baking powder. For every 240 g of plain flour, add 1 and half leveled teaspoons of baking powder. Mix the two with a whisk and then sift twice.

Measure all ingredients correctly

Make sure the ingredients are measured accurately. It is highly advisable that you do not modify the quantity in your first try as that will not help if the cake does not turn out as it should.

Do not over bake the cake

This will help ensure your cake is moist. The cake should ideally be removed from the oven when a toothpick inserted in the center of the cakes come out with tiny crumbs sticking to it and not when the toothpick comes out entirely clean. By that time, the cake might be over baked already.

Line your cake tins

It is also important that the cake tins are well greased and floured. The cake tins can also be lined with parchment paper. But make sure they are well greased so that they are not stuck to the cake tins after baking.

Divide the cake batter equally into cake tins

When dividing the cake batter between multiple cake tins, it is best to weigh the cake tins after filling the batter in to make sure the batter is consistently filled in each tin. This will ensure the cakes are all cooked uniformly.

Bring the cake to room temperature before decorating

If you refrigerate the cake before decorating, make sure it comes back to room temperature before layering or carving. The cake tends to be crumbly when its straight out of the fridge but is perfectly soft and moist at room temperature.

A round cake covered in white buttercream with pink and maroon rosettes and green leaves. A slice of the moist vanilla cake is cut out. — ***Super Moist Vanilla Cake***

Like this moist cake recipe? Here are my other posts you might want to check out

Recipe (Printable)

Here is the full printable version of my best ever moist vanilla cake recipe:

A round cake covered in white buttercream with pink and maroon rosettes and green leaves. Cake is on a white cake stand

Moist Vanilla Cake

This is the best vanilla cake I have tried so far. With a soft and moist yet solid texture that cuts so perfectly, this cake is perfect for stacking and carving.

4.70 from 10 votes

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Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Moist Vanilla Cake

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes

Yield: 2 7 inches round cakes

Author: Priya Maha

Metric - US Customary