Classic Favorite Yellow Cake Recipe

This yellow cake recipe is a classic. It’s easy and delicious. Some links in this post are affiliate links that earn me a commission if you purchase through them.

My birthday was Saturday.  And if I want a cake, I have to make it myself.

Since I was already making chocolate chip cookie cupcakes for a friend’s daughter’s birthday party, I wasn’t feeling super creative on what I wanted for myself.  I just wanted something I knew I could make easily to take to the Northwestern tailgate.

The answer is deliciously simple: my favorite yellow cake.  It’s super quick to throw together, and it tastes so good!

To make things easy, I often make my cakes in a 13×9 inch pan so I can just frost the top and serve it. Layer cakes are pretty, but yeah they’re a tiny bit more work. The recipe notes include tips to make this into a layer cake if you prefer.

Birthdays are a big deal in my house, so I always make something special for everyone. My daughter recently requested a Kit Kat cake, and my mom loves a light lemon filled white cake. 

Looking for more fun cake recipes? Check out my favorites at the end of this article.

I made a mocha frosting for this that was awesome.  It’s super easy to make frosting and so forgiving. Keep reading for the down and dirty recipe. But first….

How to Make a Classic Yellow Cake (From Scratch)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. You always want to have your oven ready before anything goes in it.

Prepare your pans either by using the lazy man’s way out (Pam) or butter and flouring them. You can use a 9×13 pan or 3 9 inch rounds. Guess which I usually do….

Beat together the butter and sugar until they are fluffy and lightened in texture, just as you do with most recipes.

It is important that the butter be room temperature. When it’s cold, it doesn’t fluff as well, and you don’t get the same light texture to your cake. Trust me.

Add your eggs one at a time. Beat well between each addition.

You want the light texture from your eggs, too, but you don’t want to overbeat these, so don’t leave your mixer on for minutes at a time.

Add the salt and baking powder, mixing well. Add 1 cup of the flour and stir gently.

This is when I stop with the electric mixer and move to a large spatula to ensure I don’t overmix the batter, which results in bubbles in my cake and a too dense, crumby texture.

Add half the milk, as well as the vanilla and almond extract. Mix with your spatula until incorporated, stirring from the bottom to the top.

Add another cup of flour, stirring again. Once incorporated, add the remaining milk, stir. Add the last of the flour and stir until just combined.

Pour your batter into your prepared pans. Bake in the 350 degree oven for 24 minutes for the rounds or 30-33 minutes for the 9×13 pan, testing to ensure the middle is baked before removing the cakes.

You want to use a cake tester – either a toothpick or an actual cake tester – and have just a few crumbs come out when you test. If the tester comes out completely clean, you overbaked your cake. Who knew, right?

Let cool for ten minutes in the pan, then turn out to a wire rack to cool the rest of the way. Frost as desired and eat within a day or two.

If you try to turn out your cake before letting it cool first, it will stick to the pan even if you grease it well. How many times have you lost part of your cake because you didn’t wait long enough?

Of course, if you make your cake in a 9×13 pan, just leave it in the pan and let it cool all the way down before you frost it. Easy peasy that way!

How to Make Mocha Frosting

One day I will make a video showing how to rescue frosting from various issues because no matter how much I’ve accidentally put in too much milk or powdered sugar or whatever, I can always bring it back to a wonderful frosting – and you can, too, if you have the confidence.

Mocha frosting?  It’s super simple to make A little espresso, half a stick of butter, half a cup or so of cocoa powder, a couple tablespoons of milk, and 2-3 c powdered sugar.

Mix together the butter and sugar, add the milk, add the cocoa powder and espresso and mix again.  Then beat until it’s fluffy.  Adjust your ratios until you like the texture, then frost immediately.

Oh, and then sing happy birthday to me.  Loudly, please.

What’re your favorite frosting for a classic yellow cake?

More favorite cake recipes:

• Molten chocolate cake
• Strawberry lemonade icebox cake
• Individual pineapple upside down cakes
• Green tea cupcakes with matcha buttercream frosting
• Strawberry cake
• S’mores cake
• Perfect light white cake
• Chocolate olive oil cake
• Chocolate sour cream pound cake
• Wicked chocolate bundt cake
• Lemon blueberry dump cake

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