Best Homemade White Cake Recipe (2024)

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!

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This is the Best Homemade White Cake

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

Easy White Cake Recipe Ingredients

To make this homemade white cake you'll need:

You'll also need a cake pan. We like 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, but you can check out this article on Cake Flour vs. All-Purpose Flour or Substitutions for All-Purpose Flour

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.

Making a Dry Cake Moist: This is a very moist cake recipe, but if you have trouble with it, check out this post for How To Make A Dry Cake Moist

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 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 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 it. If you are going to freeze it, wrap the cake unfrosted tightly in plastic wrap before freezing.

White Cake From Scratch Recipe FAQs

Is white cake just vanilla?

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

What makes the cake moist and fluffy?

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.

What is white cake made of?

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.

Can I make this cake mix into a bundt cake?

You can! Watch while baking though as the time may be affected. We also love this Moist Lemon Bundt Cake!

What makes a cake more moist milk or water?

Milk will make a cake more moist. It has more fat and gives a better texture to cake.

What is the difference between yellow and white 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
The Best Vegan Coffee Cake
Italian Lemon Olive Oil Cake
Chocolate Fudge Cake

Simple White Cake

This is the Best Homemade White Cake Recipe! Soft, fluffy and easy to make, this white cake from scratch is done in under an hour! An Easy White Cake Recipe you can make at home and decorate however you like!

5 from 2 votes

Print Pin Rate

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: best homemade white cake, easy homemade white cake, homemade moist white cake, homemade white cake, homemade white cake mix recipe, homemade white cake recipe

Prep Time: 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes minutes

Servings: 8 slices

Calories: 306kcal

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.

Nutrition