This is the ultimate vanilla cake recipe with oil! It is fluffy, moist, flavourful, and truly the best vanilla cake I’ve ever had! We use a combination of oil and butter to maintain the buttery taste but not compromise on moistness! Try it, I bet it will be your new favourite too!
Jump to:
Vanilla cake. I honestly have never been the biggest vanilla cake fan. When I first began baking cakes I found vanilla cake really challenging to perfect. The number of dense, flavourless cakes that I’ve ended up with - yuck. After plenty of vanilla cake catastrophes I can assure you this is the best vanilla cake recipe with oil that you will ever have. This recipe is moist, flavourful, and has the perfect crumb consistency!
Why I love this Vanilla Cake Recipe:
- It’s fluffy and light from using cake flour and egg whites.
- The vanilla flavour really comes through from the pure vanilla extract we use.
- The perfect crumb consistency that makes frosting it a breeze!
- It creates the perfect cake base to spruce up with flavoured buttercream, fillings, sprinkles etc.
- It requires simple ingredients you likely already have in your pantry.
Ingredients to Make A Vanilla Cake Recipe with Oil
- Unsalted Butter - provides buttery flavour
- Vegetable Oil - adds extra moisture to the cake.
- Granulated Sugar - for sweetening batter and helps with creating light and fluffy cupcake through creaming process. Sugar crystals aid with whipping air into butter.
- Egg Whites - important for leavening process
- Pure Vanilla Extract - the sole flavour of our cake so make sure to use pure vanilla extract, not artificial vanilla extract for the strongest flavour.
- Cake Flour - a low protein flour essential to create a light, beautifully textured cake. See the note about how to make homemade cake flour.
- Baking Powder - helps with rise in the cake layers.
- Salt - helps balance out the sweetness.
- Buttermilk - provides a delicious tang to the cake. See the note at the bottom for how to make a buttermilk substitution if you don't feel like purchasing it from the grocery store.
How to Avoid a Vanilla Cake Catastrophe:
- Ensure all of your ingredients are room temperature. In order to allow your ingredients to incorporate together well, this is imperative. In the first step of the recipe, it's especially important to allow the butter and oil to amalgamate together - and this takes time!
- Cream your butter and sugar until they are light and fluffy! Don’t skip this step. It’s important to allow time for these to whip together in order to create a light and fluffy cake.
- Don’t over mix your batter! Oh my goodness. If I had a nickel for every time I over mixed my batter and ended up with a dense vanilla cake when I first started baking… We only want to mix just enough to incorporate our ingredients.
- Use real vanilla extract! Since this is the dominant flavour of this cake, you want to make sure you’re using good quality vanilla so the flavour shines through.
FAQs for using this Vanilla Cake Recipe with Oil:
Definitely! You can use regular milk if you like. You can also use this easy substitutions. For each cup of buttermilk needed, add one tablespoon of white vinegar (I use this most often) or one tablespoon of lemon juice to a cup of milk (I prefer whole milk)
Yes! But i prefer cake flour. Here is an easy substitution. For each cup of all purpose (AP) flour, remove two tablespoon and replace with two tablespoon of cornstarch. Whisk together well. This will create a softer flour, more similar to cake flour.
Yes! It will fit in a 9x13 pan. You can also make two 8'' cake layers with this recipe.
Storage
Store your oil based vanilla cake in the fridge for up to 3 days. Once your cut into the cake it's important to place a piece of plastic wrap on the exposed cake insides. The fridge can be very drying for cake.
Store vanilla cake layers wrapped tightly in two layers of plastic wrap on the counter for up to 2 days. Alternatively, you can freeze cake layers wrapped tightly in two layers of plastic wrap for up to 3 months. When you're ready to frost your vanilla cake, simply remove the layers from the freezer and thaw on the counter for 2-3 hours.
Related
Interested in more recipes like this? Try these:
For this cake I used Swiss Meringue Buttercream - it is silky, smooth, and perfectly sweet. Find the recipe here.
Vanilla Cake Recipe with Oil
Equipment
- Stand Mixer, paddle attachment and whisk attachment
- Three 6" Cake Pans
Ingredients
- ½ cup Unsalted Butter At room temperature
- ½ cup Vegetable Oil
- 1½ cups Granulated Sugar
- 5 Egg Whites At room temperature
- 1 tablespoon Pure Vanilla Extract
- 3 cups Cake Flour Sifted See note about substitution below.
- 1 tablespoon Baking Powder
- ½ teaspoon Baking Soda
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- 1½ cups Buttermilk At room temperature. See note about substitution below.
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F.
- Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a medium bowl. Set aside.
- Spray three 6-inch cake pans with non-stick spray. Set aside.
- Into the bowl of an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, beat butter and oil together for 3-4 minutes until they are completely unified.
- Slowly add sugar into the mixture and beat on medium to high speed until light and fluffy (about 2 minutes) Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
- With the mixer on low speed add egg whites in one at a time followed by the vanilla. Beat on high until mixture is smooth and light in colour.
- With the mixer on low speed, add one third of the flour mixture into the bowl and mix until just combined. Scrape down the bowl and add one half of the butter milk and again mix until just combined. Repeat this process. Begin and end with the flour mixture. Do not over mix or your cake will become quite dense.
- Distribute cake batter evenly between three 6-inch cake pans. I like to use a kitchen scale to ensure batter is divided equally.
- Bake for 35-38 minutes, or until knife comes out clean. Each oven is slightly different, so I suggest setting your timer to 30 minutes and watching carefully from there!
- Cool on cooling rack for 10 minutes before inverting and removing cakes from can pan to cool completely.
Carolina says
Actually the best vanilla cake!
Marina Mooney says
I’ve been looking for a perfect vanilla cake recipe for years and have finally found it - delicious!
Blair Braz says
Yes!!! I'm thrilled you found your perfect vanilla cake recipe. It's my favorite too 🙂
Sukhi says
This recipe is perfection. So light and moist with the punch of vanilla flavour!
Blair Braz says
Isn't is such a great punch of vanilla!!
Carey C says
This is the fluffiest and tastiest vanilla cake recipe I have found! I have been trying to find the perfect vanilla cake recipe for years...only to end up with dense and dry cakes...not BakedByBlairs vanilla cake recipe! It’s perfectly moist and fluffy! She gives the best directions-they are always broken down perfectly and make cake baking a simpler task because she is such an excellent teacher!
Blair Braz says
Oh my goodness! What a seriously kind comment. I'm so happy that you love the cake and also that the instructions are easy to follow. I find the instructions to be the most important part of any blog post so this is exciting for me!!!
Kelli George says
I absolutely LOVE Blair’s recipe for vanilla cake! The combination of the oil and butter makes the cake so light, moist and fluffy. It’s now become my go-to vanilla cake recipe because it’s so darn good!
Blair Braz says
Yay!!! Isn't it just the best?!
Gio says
I cannot wait to make this cake for my son’s bday! I am wondering if the whisk attachment is needed, do I have to change the paddle attachment at some point? TIA
Blair Braz says
The whisk attachment is not needed! Can't wait to hear your thoughts.
Kekeli says
I will give a try for sure
Blair Braz says
Great!
Sylvia Motsi says
Thanks, God bless yu this is the best Vanilla cake receipe
Blair Braz says
Yay! I'm SO glad!!
Sarah says
I have been baking cakes regularly for four years, and I can say hands-down that this is my favourite vanilla cake recipe that I’ve ever tried! It’s got everything perfect that you would want in vanilla cake, from the moisture of the oil to the flavour of the butter, to the tenderness imparted by the buttermilk, to the fine crumb given by the cake flour, to the light fluffiness from the egg whites. Oh yeah, and a healthy dose of vanilla! Blair, this recipe is EVERYTHING!
Carley Townsend says
Turned out SO well! Moist, fluffy, and delicious; it's the perfect balance of vanilla and sweet!
Blair Braz says
Yes! I'm so glad to hear!!!
Xandra says
I made this cake (along with BBB’s infamous chocolate cake and chocolate frosting) to make this beauty for my nephew’s construction theme 3rd birthday! All I did was added yellow food coloring to the batter before cooking in order to get that caution tape vibe 🚧🦺👷
Blair Braz says
Unreal!!! I must try adding colouring to the cake layers!
Lena says
This cake looks SO yummy! Is it possible to bake this in two 8 (or 9) inch pans? Would you adjust the baking time?
Blair Braz says
Yes! You can absolutely bake it in 8" cake pans. I recommend two 8" pans and to use approximately the same bake time, but check it at 30 minutes and go from there!
Julie Harris says
I would love to find the perfect vanilla cake but I’m wondering how to make this into a 3 layer 8” cake ! Can you help !?!?
Heather says
This is my favourite cake of yours!
Kekeli says
I will give a try for sure
Blair Braz says
Great, I can't wait to hear how you like it.
Amber Wheat says
This has become my go-to recipe for vanilla cake. It always comes out perfect and it is easy to bake, easy to cut off tops for icing, and it stays moist even after freezing it.
Blair Braz says
Wonderful! Thank you so much for sharing this!
Brett says
I don’t even like vanilla cake and this is my favorite flavour of cake you’ve made for me!
Blair Braz says
haha!!! good!
Alisha Linehan says
Really moist and tasty. Definitely adding it to my rotation!
Blair Braz says
Amazing!!!! So happy!
Maria says
Absolutely love your cake recipes! Made the vanilla and came out a bit dry is that due to not measuring properly? Could I add more oil?
Blair Braz says
Yes, it could be from improper measuring of flour. Additionally it could be if you oven temperature was slightly off (each oven is a bit different in regard to the actual temperature inside vs. what the oven reads as) Thanks for your kind words about my recipes!
Maria says
Would doubling the recipe be enough for 3 layer 8inch pans?
Blair Braz says
Yes! It absolutely will be. You can make 3 layer 8" pans with 1 batch but they would be thinner layers.
Niki says
Sadly, I followed the directions EXACTLY and I have an oven thermometer but I found the recipe to be drier than others and it seemed to be way too much batter for three 6inch pans. As I was filling my pans, I was like WOW, this is a lot of batter. The tops of the cakes came WAY over the tops of the pans, which I felt was odd and I had to cut off the tops of the cakes which I normally don’t ever have to do with other recipes. I wanted to love it but it just didn’t work for me.
Blair Braz says
Hello - I'm very sorry to hear about your experience. A few things can contribute to a dry cake which I'm wondering if could have happened. When you were measuring your flour did you use the measuring cup to scoop out the flour? Or did you use a spoon to fill the measuring cup and level off? If you used the measuring cup as a scoop it can cause flour to become packed down and ultimately lead to too much flour and a dry cake. Another thought is if you filled your cake pans too high you may have needed to cook the cake longer since there was so much batter. This could have also dried out the cake. Let me know if either of these help and how I can trouble shoot with you more!
Mel says
the cake looks so fluffy and tasty!! Would I be able to use whole eggs in the recipe? If so, how many should I use? Thanks!!!
Blair Braz says
Hey Mel! Yes, you can substitute eggs - I would use 3 eggs. Note that the color of the cake will be more of a yellow cake if you use eggs instead of only egg whites!
Vanessa says
Such a good recipe! I use the cornstarch substitution for the flour and this cake comes out light, fluffy and delicious! The only vanilla cake recipe I use!
Blair Braz says
Incredible 🙂
GUSTAVO says
I hadn't seen a recipe like this one before! I am about to get to the supermarket to get my ingredients! It really inspired me, thank u!
Blair Braz says
Oh good! So glad.
Angela says
What a beautiful cake! Love the layers and it's so moist! Thanks for the perfect recipe.
Blair Braz says
I'm glad you loved it!
Biana says
This vanilla cake looks amazing! Will be perfect for birthday parties, with some funfetti sprinkles.
Blair Braz says
Absolutely!
maryanne says
My vanilla cake turned out so light and fluffy! And I love the vanilla flavor! I recipe tested it before we have some friends over next month, and now I know I will be making this for sure! Thanks for a great recipe!
Beth says
This cake is absolutely delicious and so easy to follow! I love that this doesn’t have oil in it and the family just loves it. I can’t wait to make this cake again!
Danika says
I am not much of a baker but I used this recipe to make my daughters first birthday cake and with Blair’s great tips it turned out great!
Blair Braz says
Incredible! I love this recipe too 🙂
Lilo says
Hey can I use eggwhites out of a carton ?
Blair Braz says
Absolutely you can! I recommend using 3/4 cup for the 5 egg whites.
Christin says
Hello,
Will this cake hold under fondant? Thank you!
Blair Braz says
I haven't tried it, but the oil adds so much moisture I probably wouldn't substitute.
Susan says
This vanilla cake recipe is easy to make. The cake is light and fluffy. Perfect every time I make it
Blair Braz says
I'm so happy you enjoyed it!
Danielle says
The best vanilla cake recipe. It’s light, fluffy and full of flavor.
Blair Braz says
I'm so glad!
Janelle says
This vanilla cake is worth every minute of preparation. It’s unlike any other I’ve tasted. Extremely fluffy and delicious. My go to recipe for vanilla cake.
Blair Braz says
Thank you for your review!!
Kendra says
I've only ever had poor experiences with baking white cakes, so I'm excited to try this recipe! Is this a good amount of batter for 24 cupcakes?
Suzanne Carroll says
Looks amazing. Could I make in bundt pan?
Blair Braz says
I haven't tried this, so I can't comment - sorry!
Brit says
This turned out so well.
Brit says
Turned out so well.
Ana C says
I made it and it is moist, fluffy and soft, delicious!
Blair Braz says
I'm so glad!!! Thanks for trying our recipe out.
Bernadette says
Can this recipe be used for cupcakes? I’ve tried so many recipes. I’m to the point that I cringe when someone asks for vanilla cupcakes. Thank you!
Blair Braz says
Hello! Yes it absolutely can. It will make 24 cupcakes. You can half the recipe to make 12-13. That's how I felt too!!
Michelle Alexandre says
Would it be ok to substitute almond for the vanilla?
Blair Braz says
Absolutely! I prefer using soy milk because almond milk does have a strong taste but you can definitely use almond milk if that's what you prefer.
Gina Cernuschi says
Looks amazing
Please could you send me the metric ingredients
Thank you
Blair Braz says
Thank you!!
114 g butter
119ml oil
300 g sugar
411 g cake flour
Do you have teaspoons for the baking soda etc?