Sometimes you just need a big slice of homemade Yellow Cake! Today I’m sharing a perfectly fluffy, moist and flavorful scratch Yellow Cake recipe with you.
Everyone needs a go-to scratch Yellow Cake recipe, and this one deserves a place in your recipe file of favorites. This recipe is not only delicious, but it’s so versatile!
This classic yellow recipe also works perfectly for yellow cupcakes. The cake layers are soft but sturdy enough for fondant, and it makes a great base cake recipe for adding extracts and flavorings.
I think the most popular pairing for Yellow Cake is Chocolate Buttercream Frosting. A classic! I loved this combination growing up, and still do!
But truly, the filling and frosting options are endless! We hope that you enjoy this recipe!
*Special thanks to my Aunt Kay for sharing her mother’s recipe with us that we have all fallen in love with over the years!
We use this recipe for our Coconut Cake. We simply added one teaspoon of coconut extract.
Yellow Cake {Scratch Recipe}
Ingredients
- 4 large eggs
- 1 cup (242 g) milk
- 2 teaspoons (8g) vanilla extract (If making a coconut cake, add an additional 1 teaspoon coconut extract)
- 2 Tablespoons (18 g) vegetable oil
- 2 1/2 cups (285 g) cake flour
- 1 1/2 cups (300 g) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon (6 g) salt
- 2 1/2 teaspoons (12 g) baking powder
- 1 1/2 sticks (12 T) (169 g) unsalted butter, softened (do not soften in the microwave) I cut into 1/2 inch slices onto waxed paper to soften slightly, it should remain cool for good results. If it becomes too soft, just refrigerate for 5 minutes
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 8 inch pans.
- *This recipe uses the Reverse Creaming Method
- In a bowl, combine eggs, milk, flavorings (if making a coconut cake, add an additional teaspoon of coconut), and vegetable oil.
- In the bowl of your mixer, combine flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder.
- Whisk the dry ingredients for 30 seconds to combine. With your mixer on low to medium speed, slowly add the pieces of butter, a few pieces at a time. Beat until the dry ingredients are moistened by the butter and look like crumbly coarse sand. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl to make sure there is no dry flour. SLOWLY with the mixer on low speed add approximately 1/2 of the egg mixture to the dry ingredients increasing to medium speed for 1 1/2 minutes, the batter will be thick and fluffy. Scrape the bowl and add the remaining egg mixture in 2 pourings, scraping the bowl and beating for 20 seconds after each addition.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 30 - 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pans 10 minutes then turn out.
- Makes 6 1/2 cups batter
Hop over for our fantastic Classic Chocolate Buttercream Frosting Recipe! Classic Chocolate Buttercream
Can this cake recipe be used for carving and under fondant?
Hi Maxie, It will be fine under fondant. I would only do light carving with this recipe.
Hi Melissa, this recipe can be use to make cupcakes?
Hi Maria, Melissa and I have not made cupcakes with this recipe, but I think it would be fine. We will test it when we get a chance just to make sure the cupcake liners do not pull away from the cupcake.
Can I use this scaled up for a ten inch cake
Hi Sue, I have not doubled this recipe to know for sure but I think it would be fine. To be cautious you could make one recipe per pan….I know that is a lot of trouble
I did the yellow cake for my family and they loved it. It is moist and the texture is great. The client that I made a baby shower cake for loved it too. I was very happy with it. Now, I will try different recipes. Thank you!!
Hi Melissa,
Am I able to substitute AP flour for the cake flour?
Thanks!
@Nilda–I’m glad that you liked our recipe!! Thanks for the feedback–
@Lisa– Substituting the exact amount of cake flour for AP flour would give you a less tender cake due to the additional gluten. However, there’s a fix for this! Here is the general rule for turning AP flour into cake flour:
Measure out 1 cup of AP flour, remove 2 tablespoons of AP flour, and replace those 2 removed tablespoons with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch. This is the equivalent of 1 cup of cake flour.
(Of course the recipe calls for 2 1/2 cups so you would use 2 1/2 cups AP flour *minus 5 tablespoons, and then add back 5 tablespoons cornstarch.
Melissa,
Thanks so much and for your quick response!
Hi!!
I just tried this recipe tonight. I used 1 batch of the batter in (2) 8 inch pans with the bake easy strips around the pan from Wilton. One of my cakes sunk after I took it out to let it cool. Any ideas?
Hi Heather, I am sorry you had a problem with one of your cakes sinking. The most common reason cakes sink is because they are under baked. Since your other cake was fine, there must have been a bit more batter in the cake pan that sank. Some bakers weight their cake pans before putting them in the oven to see if the batter in each pan is the same. Cakes bake from the outside in with the center being the last to become fully baked. Also, try not to open the oven door until near the end of the baking time. Some recipe are very sensitive to the drop in temperature that occurs when the oven door is opened. I don’t think this recipe is that sensitive, but it is just a good precaution to keep in mind. Hope this helps and that this problem won’t happen again.
I just made these as cupcakes. They are moist and tender they do not dome. I filled them 1/2 but next time Inwould do 3/4 because they do not rise that much. Thanks for a great recipe. I really do like the reverse cream method so glad you have it
Hi,
It is very unusual to use grabulated sugar ib the uk in cakes- we normally use caster. Is usa grabulated less chunky than ours or is there a reason to use such thick grains? Xxx
Hi Shali, Our granulated sugar in the US is finer than that in the UK and is fine for baking (though it is not as fine as caster sugar). When using our recipes you should use your caster sugar.
Hi
Are you able to let me know the pricing of the subscription in Australian Dollars
Thanks
Kind Regards
Sharon
Hi Sharon, I did a Google search and $30. US is 41.11 Australian dollars. When you are joining our site through PayPal, it will give you the cost in your Australian dollars before you press the Pay Button.
hi…..what kind of frosting will go well with this cake…..thanks….love all your videos and recipes to the core
Hi Manita, Some of my favorites are chocolate, caramel, coconut, ganache and many others. You can’t go wrong, yellow cakes goes well with many flavors of frosting.
Will this cake hold up under fondant and also in tiered cake ?
Hi,
Tried this yellow cake recipe, used all purpose flour (adding and removing flour for corn starch as you stated), the cake was moist and so good. Added coconut cream cheese icing, my family loved it. I will be using the reverse creaming method again. Thank you so much for the recipe.
Hi Saundra, We are happy you liked the recipe. Thank you so much for posting your thoughts on the cake!!
Hi Melissa:
I have 2 Qs: does this cake hold up under fondant? Although my cake was baked perfectly, I noticed that the batter looked kind of broken at the end. Was that normal or should I have beaten the batter longer than the 1 1/2 minutes at the beginning?
Thank you for sharing your knowledge with all of us.
Wally
Hi Wally, Yes, this recipe will hold up to fondant. I beat the batter for 1 1/2 minutes when half of the liquid is poured in and 20 seconds more after each of the other two pourings of liquid. I am not sure why the batter looked broken. I have read that if the butter mixture and the eggs/liquid mixture are not at a similar temperature it could cause a broken cake batter. But the good new is that it won’t make any difference to the final result because the broken batter will be taken care of during baking.
Thank you for the prompt response. The yellow cake was very moist,delicious, and tasty.
Thank you, Wally, we are so happy you like it!!
I have been trying to find this recipe for months now!!! LoL. I used it once and LOVED it, and then lost it.
So happy to have found you again!! <3
Hi Nancy, I’m so glad that you found your way back to our site & this recipe! ;0 ) Happy to hear that you loved it! xoxo
This recipe is so so so good!!! My new go to vanilla cake recipe. I absolutely love it! Thank you!!
Hi Melissa,
So i was determined to get this delicious recipe right as i had done the previous times lol. So here is what i noticed where i went wrong. So i made the mistake of room temping everything. My butter was warm and extremely soft. As i went back into the recipe the butter should be soften but still cold. It didnt say anything about room temping the eggs or milk lol.
However, i also noticed the first few times making it correct i used all grams for everything. And so when doing this i did see that the baking powder, salt, and oil does not add up to the correct grams when using an actual tsp or tbsp. For example: the baking powder i dont do a heaping spoon i actually level it to the ream of the teaspoon. So maybe that is why it wasnt adding up.
So from here on out i will be using ALL grams as my unit of measures. I hope this helps anyone else that may have the same issues.
Hi Angela, Thank you so much for making a follow up post to your problem. I think you have found the answer with the extremely soft butter. I leave my butter out only about 5 to 6 minutes, but that time will vary with how thick a person slices the butter to how warm their kitchen is. We do level off the teaspoon, tablespoon, etc. when measuring dry ingredients, but whenever possible it is most accurate to use the gram weight. Thanks again for your post, I’m sure it will be helpful to other members.
oohhh… I made this cake and froze it last weekend. It baked up beautifully! Nice, full layers and no dome…which is the negative…there will be only a tiny bit of scraps for tasting when I finish it tomorrow night:) I have this secret fear that my cakes will be overbaked.
Hi Dene- So happy that you made the cake!! xoxo
Hi can I substitute cake flour with bleached all purpose flour? Or even if I use bleached I still need to do the corn starch part
HI Mariam, Yes, you will still need to remove 2 Tablespoons of the bleached all purpose flour and replace with 2 Tablespoons cornstarch for each cup of flour in the recipe.
I’d like to make this into funfetti, do you think it would work ok to just add the “jimmies” right to this recipe?
Hi Jacqueline, Yes, adding jimmies will be fine.
Hi Melissa. I have tried the white cake with the reverse creaming method from your site and it came out perfect. I would like to make yellow cupcakes using your recipe. Will I get the desired ‘dome’ if I don’t use the reverse creaming method? TIA
Hi Daphne, I find that I get more of a dome if I bake the cupcakes using the conventional method. I suggest rewriting the recipe into conventional format, and then counting the ingredients just so you won’t leave anything out. Most scratch recipe do not give as much of a dome as cake mix recipes. To get more of a dome on your cupcakes, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. As soon as you put the cupcakes in the oven, reduce the temperature to 350 degrees.
I love Chocolate frosting! Melissa, do you have a Chocolate Whipped frosting? Love your tutorials!!!
Thanks Paula, the closest thing that we have would be a whipped ganache. We need to do a quick little tutorial on this but if you check out our easy ganache drip recipe, you’ll see that another option is to chill & then whip it into a frosting. It’s really good (and simple). Here’s a link:
link to mycakeschool.com
Hi! cannot wait to make this recipe as it looks wonderful. Just a question though, simply out of curiosity. What purpose does the 2T oil have since there is mostly butter being used. Could more butter be substituted for the oil or would it result much different? Thank you for sharing your recipes! So intresting knowing the science or reason behind different baking techniques :)
I just wanted to say I have recently tested about 8 from scratch, essentially vanilla/yellow cake recipes, and this one was by far the best. And one of the last I tested so I am glad I did not give up! And the instructions were spot on regarding time to let things beat and so forth.
Thanks!
Hi Erin, You have made our day!! I am so happy you like the recipe, and thank you for posting a review of the cake!!
Hi Stef, The vegetable oil adds moisture to the cake, I often add it to cake recipes. You could leave it out and add 2 additional tablespoons of butter if you like.
I live in the UK and I have never heard of cakeflour, please could explain this to me.
Can I substitute the milk for buttermilk? Thanks
Hi Deborah, Yes, you can use buttermilk but you will need to change the leavening measurements. For each cup of buttermilk used instead of milk you will want to use 2 teaspoons less baking powder and add 1/2 teaspoon baking soda. Another way to say this is 1/2 teaspoon baking soda plus 1 cup buttermilk can replace 2 teaspoons baking powder. So for this recipe you will use 1/2 teaspoon baking powder plus 1 teaspoon baking soda when using buttermilk.
Do I use the paddle or whisk for the cake?
Hi Mel, Use the paddle attachment.
I have this cake in the oven as we speak! I followed your instructions for the most part but I sifted all my dry ingredients together since my cake flour seemed somewhat lumpy. And I put all of the batter in a 11×15 pan. If it turns out well I will make it into a layer cake on Friday for a friend’s birthday. Stay tuned!!
Hi Heidi, Did you double the recipe, a 11×15 pan will need 11 cups of cake batter. Hope all goes well.
hi, can i add dessicated coconut to the yellow cake recipe. im addicted to it. If possible how much quantity.
Hi Erikah, I’m not sure, I’ve never used desiccated coconut. I know that it has less moisture than the usual shredded coconut, but not sure how it would effect this recipe. Let us know what you think if you give it a try!
Hi,
I love using sour cream in cakes. I find I get a nice crumb. What substitution should I do here if I use sour cream vs milk?
Thanks :)
Hi Helen, When I substitute sour cream for milk in a recipe, I use the same measurement. Instead of 1 cup milk, use 1 cup sour cream. The gram weight of sour cream is the same as milk. I have not tried using sour cream in this recipe, but it should be fine. Let us know how you like it with sour cream.
Ok,
I tried it with sour cream! It’s heavenly! Tight crumb, soft, tender! It’s amazing.
I’ve also tried it with homo milk… Also delicious but a more open crumb.
Do you use a simple syrup if you are stacking it and covering it with fondant?
Thanks so much for the awesome recipe and quick response.
H
Hi Helen, Thanks so much for posting your thoughts after using sour cream. I’m going to do the same the next time I use this recipe.
We do not use simple syrup.
Hi Melissa. I tried this recipe as cupcakes. The flavor is fantastic! However, my cakes were very dense. I didn’t have cake flour so I did the ap/cornstarch conversion. Sifting them together twice. Baking powder is good. Followed the order and mixing times. What could have gone wrong?
For anyone wondering about cupcakes, I got 30 using a large scoop. Baked 15-17 minutes
Thank you Melissa!
Hi. I live in Denver where it is hard to get a yellow cake to turn out well. Would you have any adjustments for high altitude for this recipe? Thank you!
Hi Kate, We have never had the challenge of baking at high altitude but I found this link with suggestions that might be helpful for you, link to craftsy.com.
Thank you so much! I will check it out and see if I can make your beautiful cake.
Wonderful, let me know how it goes.
How many layers of cake do you think can be stacked with this cake? i recently made a 4 layer yellow cake (each layer about 2″), but the recipe I used was so spongy that the very bottom layer started “sinking” taking on all the weight. as a result the buttercream covering the cake was cracking at the bottom. I haven’t had any trouble with 3 layer cakes, but I needed this particular design to be 4 layers. Do you think this recipe will hold up?
Hi Susan, Typically you will need support for every 4 inches of cake. So you will need to stack 2 cake tiers as usual, with a cake board and dowels/bubble tea straws in between. Instead of a typical tiered cake, the tiers are the same size. When the cake is frosted it will look like one tall cake. This is referred to a as a double barrel cake. Melissa has a video on this that you might like to watch, here is a link link to mycakeschool.com. One thing that Melissa did not show in the video is…..when the dowels are put into the bottom tier and the top is frosted, you might want to top the frosting with a circle of parchment before placing the cake board on top of the dowels/bubble tea straws. This will prevent the frosting from sticking to the cake board and pulling off when cutting the bottom tier for serving. You want the guest to have a bit of frosting on the top of their slice of cake. Hope that was clear. Also, are you familiar with the reverse creaming method? This recipe uses that method of mixing. Melissa has a video on this if you would like to watch it, just enter reverse creaming method in the search bar.
Can I make this with a hand mixer ? If so, what should I do different? Thanks
Hi Mell, Yes, you can use a hand mixer, you will need to increase all the mixing times slightly. You might prefer baking this cake using the conventional mixing method you usually use. If you decide to, I suggest rewriting into that method because it is easy to leave out an ingredient.
Can I use this recipe for 9×13 cake or do I need to double the recipe. Can’t wait to make this. Thanka
Hi Patricia, This recipe uses the reverse creaming method, here is a link to a video on that method, if you need it. link to wilton.com This recipe makes 6 1/2 cups and the Wilton batter amount chart suggest 10 cups of batter for a 9×13 cake. Here is a link to the Wilton chart, link to wilton.com. You could use a rose nail in the center of the pan to help with more eve baking. Also, if the cake is not done by 40 minutes, I would lightly place a piece of aluminum foil over the cake to prevent over browning on top.
Hi I was wondering if you could use buttermilk in replace of milk? Thank you for sharing your recipes.
Hi Nicole, yes, you can.
Hi there! i’ve tried several scratch vanilla recipes and they all end up tasting like cornbread. Does this recipe gone the same result? Thanks!
Hi Ann, we don’t think it taste like cornbread. I hope you will give it a try.
This cake was delicious! It turned out perfect! I had to make cake flour out of all purpose flour (first time I’ve done that) and it turned out delicious. I made the classic chocolate buttercream to go with it and I couldn’t be happier.
Hi Chelsea, That is wonderful, I am so happy you like the two recipes! Your cake looks delicious!! Thank you for taking the time to post your thoughts.