Baking Cakes With Recipe

A simple vanilla cake recipe is the perfect introductory cake for beginners, as well as a versatile standby for more experienced bakers to have on hand. While there’s a whole, huge, hyper-calorific world of complicated cakes out there to explore, from red velvet cakes to lemon drizzle cakes, this easy cake recipe is where it all begins and it's worth mastering so you can get the basics of cake making under your belt before you start to jazz it up with flavour additions and decorating finesse.

A simple vanilla cake recipe does what it says on the tin: provides you with a delicate, moist and flavourful cake that can serve as a base for something more elaborate, please a host of children clamouring for something sweet or provide a simple sugar fix. This is a cake recipe that works splendidly for birthdays, special occasions, or just that celebrated English ceremony, afternoon tea. We also believe that you never need a reason to make or eat a simple vanilla cake, so have it whenever the urge to bake takes you. It’s the most basic possible combination of eggs, flour, butter and sugar – practically the Platonic ideal of a cake – baked in the oven for 45-50 minutes. You’ll know it’s done when it’s golden on top, and a skewer inserted into its side comes out clean.

Once the cake has cooled, slather it with buttercream frosting, pile fruit on top of it, or simply dust it with icing sugar, and it’ll be delightful any way you choose to slice it. You could even turn it into a Victoria sponge by cutting it in half laterally once cool, adding a layer of jam and sticking it back together again – though we also have a very good Victoria sponge recipe to follow for more specific instructions.

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If you’re looking for something a little more challenging, we have all sorts of cake recipes to try: we recommend moving on to our easy chocolate cake if you’re a fan of this cake, or chocolate fairy cakes make a nice treat and are fun for kids to make. Or try this easy gluten-free chocolate cake  which uses the ever-versatile ganache in two ways. 

You need a raising agent to help your cake rise, which is why cake recipes often feature self-raising flour. If you only have plain flour, make sure to include a rising agent to go along with it or the cakes and pastries will stay flat. A popular rising agent can be baking powder. 

TopicsCake recipes 151 baking recipes to try Easy recipes everyone should know 50 of the best afternoon tea recipes Desserts and Cakes RecipesThis is my best vanilla cake recipe.A classic butter cake but with Japanese techniques applied for the most plush, soft and moist yellow cake like you’ve never had before. This professional bakery style cake stays fresh and moist for 4 days — that’s unheard of! Use the same batter for perfect Vanilla Cupcakes.

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So if all that appeals to you too, then I dare say this might become YOUR favourite vanilla cake recipe too! And here’s a little preview to show you how soft and fluffy it still is after 4 days:

This vanilla cake is the result of bringing together the best of Japanese sponge cakes and Western butter based cakes. It has the world renowned very soft, fluffy crumb of Japanese cakes anduses the Japanese baking method, combined with the buttery goodness and sweetness of Western cakes.

But it’s more sturdy than Japanese cakes which are so delicate, they can really only be decorated with cream. Anything heavier and the bottom layer gets squished!

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Also, importantly, this cake incorporates my cake shelf-life requirement to stay perfectly fresh for at least 2 days after it’s made. (This lasts perfectly for 4 days.) Because who bakes cakes on the day they are intended to be served??

Interestingly, baking experts will recognise the method and ingredients in this cake to be very similar to what is called a Hot Milk Cake in America – albeit strangely it’s often described as a “dense” cake, presumably because they don’t preserve the egg aeration to the extent I insist we do and also because sometimes it’s baked in bundt pans which takes far longer to bake (= dense cake).

The words“best served on the day” on a cakerecipe is never a good sign – it means it drastically degradesovernight. But THIS cake recipe is near perfect for 4 days – even 5 days!

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I don’t want to get too cake nerdy with you… but one sign of a well made cake is an even crumb. No large tunnels or lots of irregular size holes. It looks and tastes

There’s a widely held misconception that cake flour is the secret to a better cake. That’s only true for certain cakes. For this one, plain / all purpose flour yields better results.

Here’s what you need to make this plush, soft vanilla cake.No cake flour, no buttermilk, no sour cream. Tried them all – this cake is better with plain / all purpose flour and just milk.

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Making a really good cake that starts with “cream butter and sugar until fluffy….” is actually harder than you think. The butter has to be at the perfect temperature, and you can’t have chilly mixing bowls.

If it’s too hard, you’ll never manage to cream it and you’ll end up with grease pockets. If you beat butter too long, you break the air pockets.

There’s more room for error with cookies and some other types of baked goods. But the butter temperature needs to be near perfect for cakes and cupcakes. (17°C/63°F is the perfect temperature for “softened butter”).

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I’ve tried dozens and dozens over the years, to compare to this Vanilla Cake. This recipe puts all to shame in terms of fresh shelf life.

Heads up – this is a long step by step explanation post, to ensure those who are new to baking are armed with everything they need to make this cake perfectly, first time and every time!

Hard to find the perfect cake because there is nothing to hide behind, it is one of the purest forms of baking. And the “cream butter and sugar” step is the biggest cause of problems, setting up the cake for success or failure from the very start (read above).

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A stand mixer makes this vanilla cake a breeze to make, though it can be made with a handheld electric beater.While it takes time tobeat the eggs to make a lovely fluffy cake, this recipe is more fail-proof than the usual “cream butter and sugar until fluffy” recipes – read the above box for why.

1. Whip the eggs and sugar –Beat the eggs with sugar for a whole 7 minutes until thick and glossy, it changes from yellow to white, and tripled in volume (just over double depth in the bowl).

The aeration created during this step is key for a soft, fluffy crumb. This is a technique borrowed from Japanese sponge cakes.

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2. Gradually add flour – Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Thenadd into egg mixture in 3 lots, mixing for just 5 seconds on Speed 1 in between. This should make the flour

3. Hot melted butter in milk – use a microwave or stove to heat milk with the butter until it melts. Believe it or not, HOT milk helps with aeration in this cake. I doubted it, so I tried with cooled melted butter in milk and found it did not rise as well.

The use of hot milk with melted butter in a cake batter is another technique used in some types of Japanese sponge cakes (such as this one from Chopstick Chronicles, a Japanese food blog). Interestingly, I recently discovered it is also used in a traditional Southern cake called Hot Milk Cakes.

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4. Mix some batter into hot milk – this serves two purposes: a) bring down the temperature of the hot milk so it won’t “cook” the eggs (ie. tempering); and b) it lightens up the density of the hot milk (see above – it becomes foamy) so it blends together faster when added to the rest of the whipped egg mixture.

The melted butter in hot milk infuses this cake with beautiful subtle buttery flavour without the greasy mouthfeel inherent with butter cakes.

5. Slowly pour milk mixture back into whipped eggs over 20 seconds on Speed 1. Scrape down sides of bowls, then mix for 10 seconds on Speed 1 – the batter should now be smooth;

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This cake can be made in various pan sizes, bundt pans and also makes perfect cupcakes. Click herefor a handy table of different sizes, bake times and cake height (including 3 layer cakes).

7. Knock out big air bubblesby dropping the cake pans on the counter 3 times. This won’t affect the cake-rising bubbles created in Step 1. But itmakes large bubbles in the batter rise to the surface andburst.

If you don’t do this, you end up with maybe 6 or so large bubbles on the cake surface that go brown, and more unsightly large

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