The BEST Homemade White Cake Recipe! Done in under an hour, this cake is soft, fluffy and so easy to make! You'll never use box mix again!
If you've ever felt intimidated making a cake from scratch, this recipe is for you!
Unlike other cake recipes that require complex techniques or fancy ingredients, this basic white cake recipe is made with only 7 ingredients you probably already have in your pantry/fridge!
The cake has a rich, fluffy texture, is perfectly sweet and is so easy to make!
Whether you're celebrating a birthday, holiday, or just because - this simple vanilla cake recipe will quickly become your go to recipe! It's truly the best white cake recipe!
Why you'll love this Simple White Cake
- Easy to make: Making a white cake from scratch is almost as easy as making it from the box mix!
- Few Ingredients: Box mix cakes are made with cheaper/low quality ingredients. They're great in a pinch but if you want the best cake recipe - this is it!
If you're looking for cake with a little more flavor check out Red Velvet Cupcakes, Key Lime Cake, or Chocolate Oreo Cupcakes
Ingredients
To make this homemade white cake you'll need:
- salted butter - salted butter is better for this cake!
- white sugar
- all purpose flour - I haven't made this gluten free, but other readers have and said it was delicious
- baking power
- egg whites - egg whites give the cake it's fluffy texture
- whole milk - the fat from the whole milk helps make this cake moist and tender
- pure vanilla extract - don't use imitation, it's so much better to use the real stuff!
You'll also need a cake pan. We love these 8x8 cake pans.
How to make this White Cake Recipe from Scratch
Here's how to do it:
- Cream together butter and sugar.
- In a separate large bowl, combine flour and baking powder.
- In a third separate mixing bowl, add the egg whites and whip until light and fluffy.
- Add the butter/sugar mixture to the flour mixture. Mix well.
- Stir in the milk and vanilla extract.
- Gently fold in the egg.
- Pour mixture into the greased 8x8 pan and bake for 30 minutes at 350 or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center of the cake. Cool completely before frosting.
White Cake from Scratch Recipe Substitutions
Butter: Butter is essential to this recipe. We haven't tried it with dairy free butter.
Granulated Sugar: White sugar helps give this cake a fluffy texture
All Purpose Flour: We don't recommend substituting the flour in this recipe.
Baking Powder: Baking powder is essential for this cake to rise. Do NOT substitute with baking soda.
Egg Whites: Egg whites help make this cake light and fluffy. We don't recommend substituting eggs, but you can read this article on Egg Substitutions for Baking if you need to substitute.
Milk: You can substitute milk with half and half, low fat milk or non dairy milk.
Vanilla Extract: Helps to add flavor, we don't recommend substituting. If you want to make a lemon cake you could use lemon extract. Or I bet it would be delicious with almond extract!
How to decorate Homemade White Cake
This white cake recipe is a blank canvas, you can decorate it however you like! Just be sure to cool completely before frosting! Our favorite way to decorate this is with Homemade Buttercream Frosting and rainbow sprinkles!
You can also turn this into Cake Pops, Halloween Cake Pops or one of these Easy Holiday Truffles Recipes.
White Cake from Scratch Variations
Make it cupcakes - Use this recipe as the base for white cupcakes as well. Simply use a muffin tin and liners instead of a cake pan. You’ll want to start your baking time at 15 minutes and adjust it as needed.
Make it a yellow cake - If you would like to turn this recipe into a yellow cake, take away one egg and use the entire egg instead of just the whites. You can skip the whipping part for the eggs as well and just incorporate them into the wet ingredients.
If it’s too dry - Add a drizzle of milk to your batter, a little bit at a time if it seems too dry.
If the cake turns out dense - If your cake turns out too dense, then you’ve not whipped the eggs long enough. You can also try creaming your sugar and butter before incorporating them into the other ingredients.
Why does it taste eggy? - If your cake turns out to taste eggy, you’ve not folded in the egg properly. Yes, be gentle when folding them in, but don’t leave it partially unmixed or you’ll get an eggy taste to your cake.
How to store this Simple White Cake
Storing: You can store this recipe for up to 4 days in an airtight container at room temperature.
Freezing: We don't recommend freezing this white cake. If you are going to freeze it, wrap the cake unfrosted tightly in plastic wrap before freezing.
White Cake From Scratch Recipe FAQs
The main difference is that white cake is made with only egg whites, not egg yolks, giving the cake a paler color. Yellow cake is typically made with egg yolks. Both cakes are vanilla flavor
The key to a moist and fluffy cake is fat and eggs. Using a strong source of fat like butter, combined with whipped egg whites helps you have a fluffy cake.
It is made of butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, egg whites, milk and vanilla extract. The whites are key to making the cake white in color and fluffy in texture.
You can! Watch while baking though as the time may be affected. We also love this Moist Lemon Bundt Cake!
Milk will make a cake more moist. It has more fat and gives a better texture to cake.
A white cake and a vanilla cake have one main difference - the eggs.
A white cake only uses egg whites while a vanilla or yellow cake use the whole egg for the recipe.
Since egg yolks have a tendency to make a cake slightly yellow looking, they’re omitted when it comes to making a white cake.
The only other difference is that vanilla extract has a tendency to slightly change the color of the cake as well.
For this reason, clear vanilla extract is often used in place of normal vanilla extract, in white cakes. However, the vanilla extract amount is so small, it’s hardly noticeable, which is why many people go ahead and use whatever vanilla they have on hand whether they’re making a white cake or not.
Other Delicious Cake Recipes:
Here are some of our favorite easy cake recipes!
- Moist Chocolate Bundt Cake
- Lemon Raspberry Bundt Cake
- Sour Cream Coffee Cake
- Italian Lemon Olive Oil Cake
- Chocolate Fudge Cake
Simple White Cake
Ingredients
- ½ cup salted butter softened
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 ½ cups all purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 4 egg whites
- ½ cup whole milk
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a square 8x8-inch pan or one 9-inch round pan.
- In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.
- In a separate large bowl, combine flour and baking powder and mix well.
- In a third separate bowl, add the egg whites and whip until light and fluffy- about 2 minutes.
- Add the butter/sugar mixture to the flour and baking powder mixture. Mix well.
- Stir in the milk and vanilla extract until combined.
- Gently fold in the egg whites until just combined.
- Pour mixture into the greased 8x8 pan and bake for 30 minutes at 350 or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center of the cake.
Video
Notes
- If it’s too dry - Add a drizzle of milk to your batter, a little bit at a time if it seems too dry.
- If it’s too thin - Add in some flour or a bit of powdered sugar if the batter seems too thin.
- If the cake turns out dense - If your cake turns out too dense, then you’ve not whipped the eggs long enough. You can also try creaming your sugar and butter before incorporating them into the other ingredients.
- Why does it taste eggy? - If your cake turns out tasting eggy, you’ve not folded in the egg whites properly. Yes, be gentle when folding them in, but don’t leave it partially un mixed or you’ll get an eggy taste to your cake.
Mekell
I just made your cake recipe and it turned out FANTASTIC!! I'm so proud of myself because this is the very first cake from scratch that I have made. I just want to thank you because after searching forever I found this one and the reason I chose it is because it had all the ingredients that I had at home and it was super easy, and very good to follow.
Pepper Troop
Can't wait to try it
Pepper Troop
Can you double the ingredients to make a 13 x 9. Cake ?
Liz @ Tasty Treats & Eats
I haven't tried this but I think it would work!
Jisela Lopez
Did you use all purpose flour or cake flour because I heard there’s a difference between them and I don’t really know what it is but which one do I use??
lifebeginswithdessert
We used all-purpose flour. If you wanted to try the recipe with cake flour you would want to add an extra 3 tablespoons of cake flour. Enjoy!