Vanilla Birthday Cake with Old-Fashioned Vanilla Buttercream
This post may contain affiliate links. Read my full disclosure policy.
This classic white cake is soft, moist, and tender, with fluffy vanilla buttercream frosting—perfect for birthdays and every celebration in between.
I’ve made this simple vanilla cake every year for my daughter’s birthday since she was two years old. The cake portion of recipe is adapted from one of my favorite baking books, Perfect Cakes by Nick Malgieri, and the vanilla buttercream frosting comes from my great-grandmother’s recipe box.
“Everyone who ate this cake raved about it! This recipe reminds me of the cakes I ate as a kid.”
What you’ll need to make vanilla birthday cake
Step-by-Step Instructions
Step 1: Mix dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
Step 2: Cream butter and sugar. Beat the softened butter and sugar until very light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
Step 3: Mix liquid ingredients. In a bowl or large measuring cup, combine the egg whites and milk. Whisk well to combine.
Pro tip: Be sure the eggs are at room temperature, otherwise your batter may curdle. (To warm them up quickly, place them in a bowl of hot water before cracking them.)
Step 4: Alternate wet and dry ingredients. Beat in the vanilla and almond extract, then add one-quarter of the flour mixture and beat on low speed. Next, add one-third of the milk/egg mixture. Continue alternating adding the flour and milk mixtures, scraping down the bowl as necessary.
The finished batter should be completely smooth.
Step 5: Fill the pans. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pans and smooth the tops.
Step 6: Bake and cool. Bake the layers for 25 to 30 minutes, until they are set and a cake tester comes out clean. Cool the layers in the pans for five minutes, then unmold onto racks to finish cooling.
Step 7: Make the frosting. While the cake cools, in the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and cream cheese until well combined. Gradually add the confectioners’ sugar, beating until smooth, then beat in the vanilla and salt. If the frosting is too thick, add 1 to 2 tablespoons of milk or cream.
Step 8: Frost the cake. Once the layers are completely cool, ice the cake. You can spread the frosting smooth, or swirl it casually with a butter knife. I like to scatter some festive nonpareils or confetti sprinkles on the edges for color. Or for a change, try topping the cake with heaps of shredded sweetened coconut—it’s amazing.
More Cake Recipes You’ll Love
Vanilla Birthday Cake with Old-Fashioned Vanilla Buttercream
Ingredients
For the Cake Layers
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup and leveled-off
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, softened
- 1½ cups granulated sugar
- 6 large egg whites, at room temperature
- ¾ cup whole milk, at room temperature
- 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon almond extract
For the Buttercream
- ¾ cup (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, softened
- 4 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
- 6 cups confectioners' sugar
- 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
- Pinch salt
Instructions
For the Cake
- Preheat to 350°F (175°C) and set an oven rack in the middle position. Spray two 8-in (20-cm) cake pans with nonstick cooking spray. Cut two 8-in (20-cm) rounds of parchment paper and line the bottom of each pan; spray the paper with nonstick spray. (To measure the parchment paper, just trace the bottom of the pan.)
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Place the butter and sugar in the bowl of a heavy-duty mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium speed for about 5 minutes, or until very soft and light. Beat in the vanilla and almond extracts.
- Meanwhile, whisk together the egg whites and milk by hand in a medium bowl until just combined.
- Reduce the mixer speed to low and beat in one-quarter of the flour mixture, then one-third of the milk mixture, stopping and scraping down the bowl and beater after each addition. Beat in another quarter of the flour, then another third of the milk mixture. Scrape again. Repeat with another quarter of the flour and the remaining milk mixture; scrape. Finally, beat in the remaining flour mixture.
- Scrape the bowl with a large rubber spatula. Don't worry if the the batter looks a little grainy. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pans and smooth the tops.
- Bake the cakes for 25 to 30 minutes, until they are set and a toothpick inserted into the center emerges clean. Cool the cakes in the pans on rack for 5 minutes, then unmold onto rack to finish cooling right side up (keep parchment paper underneath cake layers so they don't stick to rack). When cake layers are completely cool, transfer to cake plate and frost with vanilla buttercream. (I always flip the bottom layer of the cake so that the domed side is facing down and touching the plate. That way, the surface that you're icing is flat and will minimize any separating between the two layers when you put the other layer on top of it.)
For the Vanilla Buttercream
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and cream cheese until creamy and well combined.
- Gradually add the confectioners' sugar, then beat in the vanilla and salt. If the frosting is too thick, add 1 to 2 tablespoons of milk or cream.
Notes
Nutrition Information
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
See more recipes:
Add a Comment
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Hi! I’m looking forward to making this cake for my son’s birthday. But I’m reading the reviews, I’m concerned that it will come out dense. Is there any preemptive advice you can give to avoid that? Should I use 1/2 regular flour and 1/2 cake flour? Also, I do not have a proper mixer. Just the handheld with whisk attachments. Will those do? Lastly, I am baking in high altitude; 6,500ft. Do I modify?
Hi Aimee, I’ve never made this with cake flour so I can’t say for sure how it would turn out. If you do decide to go with 1/2 cake flour, I would increase the amount you use by a tablespoon or two. The handheld mixer should be fine and I’ve never baked at high altitudes so I don’t have a lot of wisdom to share, but these tips may help. I’d love to hear how it turns out!
Hi Jenn,
I was so excited to make this, but in my practice run I found it to be very dry and somewhat dense. The flavor is great and I thank you for the great recipe, but I want it to be moist and fluffy. Any suggestions?
Ps – I followed the recipe with no modifications, except high altitude.
Hi Aimee, Just to be sure I understand, did you make any modifications to the recipe for high altitude?
Agreed! Same thing for me. A little dense but good flavor. Did baking it with cake flour help?
Eeek – I just put this in the oven and as I’m washing the dishes up realize I used a 1/3 c. measure instead of 1/2 c. measure for the sugar meaning I only put in 1 c. instead of 1 1/2 c. of sugar. The cake is for a birthday party – should I redo it or risk it?
Hi Kate, If it bakes up nicely — meaning the layers rise and look normal — I would still use it. The frosting is sweet enough to make up for the missing sugar. The cake won’t last as long as sugar keeps the cakes moist, but if you’re serving the cake today or tomorrow, I think it will be just fine. Please let me know how it turns out!
Could not have found an easier or more delicious scratch vanilla cake! Made it in a 9×13 glass pan because one of my 8″ rounds went missing. Way better than bakery taste. I changed the frosting ingredient amounts out of shear laziness: 8 oz bar cream cheese, 2 lb bag confectioners sugar, 2 sticks butter. I left the vanilla the same and added milk to the consistency I wanted. Had enough frosting left over to refrigerate then frost a couple dozen drop cookies. Used the 6 yolks to make an easy creme brûlée. Other than the calories, a win-win! Thank you, Jenn for this wonderful recipe. Family and I loved it.
Hi! I just wanted to know if you could possibly convert the ingredients to grams? I looked online but nearly every website had different values. Thanks!
Hi Crushelle, This recipe actually has metric conversions. To view them, scroll down to the recipe and immediately under the recipe title on the right side, you’ll see a little toggle. If you move it from “cup measures” to metric, you’ll see measurements that will work for you. Hope you enjoy!
I made this cake for my adult son’s birthday. For the icing I substituted the cream cheese icing that I had left over from Jenn’s carrot cake recipe. I also added a few tablespoons of strawberry preserves to the icing which made the combination even better. Everything was super delicious. Thank you for sharing your wonderful recipes.
Love that idea, Lynn. Glad everyone enjoyed it!
THIS CAKE IS SO GOOD! It is more like a pound cake consistency, so I would probably try whipping the egg whites and folding in next time to achieve a lighter final product. But tasted so good!
This frosting will definitely be my go-to frosting recipe from now on. Except that I added an entire package of cream cheese, since this recipe doesn’t make enough to frost the entire layer cake. I just added a tablespoon of milk at a time until the consistency was right. YUM!
My husband is pretty picky when it comes to cake, with that being said, he actually loved this! I made it for his birthday and I was going to modify it a bit but I’m so glad that I didn’t because it was perfect the way it was. This is definitely a winner!
Like the others, this was a very dense cake. The outside of the cake was a little hard. I baked the cake for 29 minutes and followed the recipe to a T. The buttercream frosting was good, but that was about it.
Curious people complained about the denseness of this old-fashioned recipe. I made the cake and it turned out as the author said. Got to wondering..
A couple of reasons for the denseness: 1. Measuring the flour incorrectly (spoon carefully into the measuring cup which adds air as you do), 2. Overcreaming at higher speed causes denseness, 3. Issues with gluten development, got to do this low speed as she said and get it done quickly, 4. I used cake flour, 5. Don’t overbake.
Older recipes are interesting, think this one went back to my grandma’s era–I’m 70 so do the math.
How high should a single eight inch cake be post baking ?
It should be about 1 1/2 inches high.
Hi Jenn,
I just made this recipe and it was a disaster. I only had medium sized eggs so I used one extra egg white. It came out very dense and a little eggy tasting. Should I have just stuck with the 6 whites? For some reason it’s hard to get large eggs here otherwise I would have just stuck with the recipe. The other flop was the icing. I used creme fraiche since I didn’t have cream cheese….anyways it curdled. Is there any way to save the icing? Will try this again another time.
Hi Rebecca, Sorry to hear this didn’t work out for you. I don’t think the extra egg what would’ve made much of a difference. Is it possible that you measured something incorrectly as the cake should definitely not be dense? And regarding the icing, unfortunately, I’m not sure how that can be salvaged- sorry!