MY RECIPETIN RECIPES BY CATEGORY THANKSGIVING CO L L ECTI O N S ABOUT

Home Cakes

My very best Vanilla Cake – stays moist 4 Search Recipes...

days!
BY: Nagi PUBLISHED: 28 Aug '20 UPDATED: 13 Nov '20 467 Comments

RECIPE V VIDEO V DOZER V

This 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 Hi, I'm Nagi!
never had before. Plus, this professional bakery style cake stays fresh and I believe you can make great food with
moist for 4 days — that’s unheard of! everyday ingredients even if you’re short
on time and cost conscious. You just need
Fluffier, more tender and less greasy than the typical vanilla cakes, much to cook clever and get creative!
more moist than traditional sponge cakes, safer to make – and the same
READ MORE
batter makes perfect Vanilla Cupcakes.

FREE RECIPE EBOOKS

Join my free email list to receive THREE
free cookbooks!

First name SIGN UP!

Email address

Meet Dozer
Official taste tester of
RecipeTin Eats!

MEET DOZER

TOP POSTS

Beef Stroganoff
Oven Baked Chicken
Breast

Slow Cooker Pork Loin Baked Mac and Cheese

Roast

Chicken Cordon Bleu Soft No Knead Dinner

Rolls

Sponsored by Toi Ohomai

Turn your passion for

sport and fitness into a…
career
Learn with
practical skills Toi Ohomai!
and gain industry…
connections in the sport and fitness industry.
Quick Asian Beef Carnitas (Mexican Slow
Learn from expert tutors in practical Ramen Noodles Cooker Pulled Pork)
classrooms.
SEE MORE

My best Vanilla Cake recipe is…..

Plush, moist, fluffy crumb without being freakishly unnaturally so (as
some store bought can be). No more dense cakes!
Keeps near perfectly for 4 whole days. 100% fresh on Day 1, still 96%
perfect on Day 4. That’s unheard of!
Lovely vanilla and butter flavour without a greasy mouthfeel;
Even, elegant crumb – no large tunnels or irregular, crumbly holes;
Bakes perfectly flat – no levelling required!
Makes perfect cupcakes;
Not overly sweet; and
As tender as it can be but still be stable enough to make a large layered
cake smothered with frosting or piles of cream and berries. In contrast,
Chiffon Cakes and Japanese Sponges which, while lighter still, cannot
actually hold up to much extra weight – the bottom layer gets quite
squished.

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:

FRESHNESS PREVIEW – THIS CAKE IS 4 DAYS OLD!

Origins of this vanilla cake

This vanilla cake is the result of bringing together the best of Japanese
sponge cakes and Western butter based cakes. It uses the baking
method and has the very soft, fluffy crumb of Japanese cakes, 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!

Also, importantly, this cake incorporates my cake shelf-life requirement

to stay fresh for at least 2 days after it’s made. 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.

The words “best served on the day” on a cake recipe is

never a good sign – it means it drastically
degrades overnight. But THIS cake recipe is near
perfect for 4 days – even 5 days!
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 velvety – a similar plush texture to Red Velvet Cake.

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.

Ingredients in my Best Vanilla Cake recipe

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.

Search Recipes...

Fast Prep, Big Flavours

Plain / all purpose flour – compared to cake flour, the flavour of the
butter and vanilla comes through better, the crumb is slightly more
velvety AND it keeps slightly more moist too. Bonus: no need to hunt
down / pay a premium for cake flour! Do not substitute with self raising
flour or gluten free flour.
Eggs – whipped to aerate, these are key to make the cake extraordinarily
light and fluffy. You don’t get an eggy flavour;
Baking powder – not baking soda (bi-carb), it doesn’t rise as well. This is
our safety net, extra helping hand to make the cake rise.
Milk, full fat – just plain cow milk. Low fat works as well but rises
marginally less. Do not substitute with non dairy milk or buttermilk;
Sugar – best to use caster / superfine sugar if you can because it
dissolves better in the eggs. But regular / granulated sugar works just
fine too – you may just end up with some little brown spots on the base;
Oil – just 1 tablespoon adds a noticeable hint of extra moistness,
especially on Day 4, without weighing down the cake in the
slightest. Don’t be tempted to add more – I tried an extra tablespoon and it
didn’t rise as well;
Vanilla extract – the best you can afford. Imitation will work just fine, but
the flavour isn’t as pure or real. I use Queen Vanilla Extract. Don’t waste
your money on vanilla beans or vanilla bean paste – it’s not worth it for
cakes.

Why this is safer than typical “cream butter

and sugar” cakes
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 the butter is too soft, the cake will be greasy and dense – sound
familiar? 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.

And even if you nail it, the cake rapidly loses freshness. Even the next
day it’s noticeably drier.

How to make my best Vanilla Cake

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 to beat 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.

The unique plush, fluffy crumb of this cake is from

double lifting power – whipped eggs PLUS baking
powder!

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.

TOP TIP: After this step, keep beating to a minimum otherwise you’ll knock the
air out. Just follow my time and beater speeds and you can’t go wrong!

Here’s what it looks like before and after beating:

After 7 minutes of beating, the egg-sugar mixture will triple in volume (double in height in the
mixing bowl).

2. Gradually add flour – Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.
Then add into egg mixture in 3 lots, mixing for just 5 seconds on Speed 1 in
between. This should make the flour just incorporated – don’t worry if there
are some bits not mixed in.

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.

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. Remember, minimal beating is key so we don’t knock out the
cake-rising-bubbles we created in Step 1.

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;

6. Pour into 2 cake pans lined with parchment/baking paper.

This cake can be made in various pan sizes, bundt pans

and also makes perfect cupcakes. Click here for a
handy table of different sizes, bake times and cake
height (including 3 layer cakes).

7. {Optional} Knock out big air bubbles by dropping the cake pans on the
counter 3 times. This won’t affect the cake-rising bubbles created in Step 1.
But it makes large bubbles in the batter rise to the surface and burst.

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 air pockets in the crumb.
The surface blemishes don’t really matter if you are frosting. But if you’re not
frosting the cake (eg just dusting with icing sugar / powdered sugar), you
may care.

8. Bake 30 minutes until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the
middle comes out clean. The cake will have a slight dome but it flattens
when it cools.

You may get the faintest cracks on the surface, like you can see in the middle
of the left cake in the photo above. That can occur if your oven doesn’t
distribute heat evenly (my left front is hotter). But don’t fret – once the cake
cools and the slight dome flattens, the cracks will disappear.

9. COOL upside down for level cakes (so you have neat, straight layers in a
layer cake) on a cooling rack. If you don’t mind a slight dome surface /
specifically want to show the beautiful golden brown surface (eg if making a
cake dusted with icing sugar / powdered sugar, or a glaze), then cool it right
side up; and

10. Decorate! Frost with your favourite frosting, smother with cream, fresh
berries, swirl with chocolate fudge frosting or simply dust with icing sugar
and serve with a dollop of yogurt or cream!

Day 4 – still super moist and fresh

The photos below are my attempt to show you how incredibly soft the cake
still is four days after it’s made! If it were dry like typical butter cakes that start
with “cream butter and sugar until fluffy”, the crumb would break when I
jabbed it, and it would never spring back.

Tips for Vanilla Cake success

You’ll love that this list is a lot less stern than many other cake recipes!

Eggs at room temperature – these will fluff better and faster. It’s easy to
warm up fridge cold eggs – just leave in warm water for 5 minutes.
What’s a room temperature egg? Pick up the egg. Fridge cold? Too cold.
Cool but not cold? That’s ok. Very warm? I would be worried they might be
off! (Note: fridge cold eggs will still fluff just fine, but it takes a couple of
minutes longer. Just more consistent results with room temp eggs);
De-chill icy cold mixing bowls – run them under warm tap water then
dry before using. Not hot tap water – just warm. Why? Eggs aerate faster
and better when slightly warm. Cold bowl will lower temperature of eggs.
This is a general useful baking tip – eg softened butter creamed in an icy
cold bowl will make it firm up;
Make sure your baking powder is still good – if you do everything right
and the batter looks like it does in my video, but your cupcakes don’t rise,
the culprit is probably your baking powder. Even if it’s not past the expiry
date, if not stored in a cool dry place, or if “someone” left the lid off for
days, it can lose rising power. To check if your baking powder is still good,
place 1/2 teaspoon in a bowl and pour over boiling water. It should
immediately bubble energetically. If not, it’s dead – chuck it! (Interesting
fact: Top restaurants replace baking powder regularly for this very
reason);
Make sure the milk and butter are hot when you mix in the batter. I don’t
understand the science, all I know is that when I melted the butter in the
milk ahead of starting the batter, then let it cool to lukewarm while I
faffed around getting everything else ready, the cake didn’t rise as well;
Once you start, don’t stop – once you start beating the eggs, keep going
until the cake is in the oven. Do not at any point stop and take a call from