The BEST Yellow Cake Recipe
If you’ve been on the hunt for a good recipe for yellow cake, it’s time to call off the search. My yellow cake is soft, plush, has a fine light crumb, and is moist enough to melt in your mouth. It’s perfectly balanced with just the right amount of sweetness and vanilla flavor, and it’s SO easy to make (one bowl and no mixer!). Every box is checked with this one! ✅ This recipe is made similarly to my chocolate cake; it’s not traditional creaming and it’s not quite reverse creaming but is more similar to that method – only easier. Because of this method there is low risk of over-mixing (but it’s not impossible!). It’s great for beginner bakers and even easier than my vanilla cake. Recently I’ve actually been favoring this cake over my vanilla recipe (though both are simple and delicious, this one is just fun and new for me!). You can even make this cake into cupcakes as I demonstrated earlier this week with my chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream post (I actually like them better than my classic vanilla cupcake recipe! 🤯).
What makes my recipe the best:
A true one-bowl recipe 💛Incredibly moist and perfectly yellow without food coloring!Pairs well with pretty much any frosting, but chocolate fudge frosting is my personal favorite.NO mixer required (thanks to melted butter!).Can handle sprinkles for a bit of funfetti flair.
What You Need
Several carefully selected ingredients make this the best yellow cake recipe out there:
Butter. I really recommend using European butter if you can; it will provide the best yellow color and flavor. If you can’t find that, regular butter will still work just fine! Oil. Using oil and butter makes for the most flavorful AND moist cake! I like to use canola oil.Cake flour. Cake flour provides the best crumb, though all-purpose can be substituted in a pinch (instructions below!). Make sure you know how to measure flour properly, or you could risk drying out this super moist cake. Eggs + egg yolks. Extra egg yolks add moisture, tenderness, and a beautiful yellow color.Sour cream. Where my vanilla cake uses buttermilk, this cake uses sour cream. While the two are similar, sour cream is a bit richer, which is exactly what this cake needs!
SAM’S TIP: This yellow cake recipe has a tendency to dome, so you will have to level your cakes before frosting. Do this after the cake has fully cooled! Remember, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Make It
SAM’S TIP: If you notice holes/tunnels in your cake when you level it, don’t panic! You may have just mixed it a tad too much. Don’t worry, with this cake (unlike many others!) you usually can’t tell in the final texture or when you go to cut into it–it’s very forgiving! I was a bit too vigorous in my video trying to show how this yellow cake recipe can’t really be over-mixed that I left mine with tunnels, but the end result was still delicious melt-in-your-mouth perfection. After so many reader requests for a recipe for yellow cake, I can’t wait to hear what you think about this one! Enjoy! Let’s bake together! I’ll be walking you through all the steps in my written recipe and video below! If you try this recipe, be sure to tag me on Instagram, and you can also find me on YouTube and Facebook
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