This yellow cake can be tricky, but man oh man it is delicious. Make sure, and I cannot stress this enough, that all your butter is very well creamed into the mixture before you add other ingredients. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl, because if it is not, it will clump and melt in the oven and that will result in holes in your cake. Believe me, I learned the hard way. Nevertheless, if this doesn't happen, this cake is really dense and moist and delicious! I needed to leave mine in the oven a bit longer, but it actually just ended up being really moist because it was slightly undercooked (which I liked!). In the pictures, I used my previous recipe for Buttercream Frosting to frost the cake, which I left a link to down at the bottom. If I had been able to choose, however, the Easy Chocolate Buttercream recipe would have gone really well with this cake as well.
Classic Yellow Cake
- 12 Tbsp. (1½ sticks) butter
- 1¾ cups sugar
- ¾ tsp. salt
- 2½ tsp. baking powder
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 4 eggs, plus 2 egg yolks
- 2¾ cups all-purpose flour
- 1½ cups milk or buttermilk
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour or line with parchment two or three 8-inch or two 9-inch round pans, or a 9 x 13-inch pan.
In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, salt, baking powder, and vanilla until fluffy and light, at least 5 minutes. Add the eggs to the butter mixture one at a time, beating well after each addition. Slowly blend one-third of the flour into the creamed mixture, then half the milk, another third of the flour, the remaining milk, and the remaining flour. Be sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl occasionally throughout this process.
Divide the batter evenly between your cake pans. Bake for 23 to 26 minutes for 8-inch rounds, 25 to 30 minutes for 9-inch rounds, or about 35 minutes for the 9 x 13-inch pan. Remove the cakes from the oven and let cool completely before frosting.