Vanilla Velvet Cake Recipe

Vanilla velvet cake

If you need a base cake for your celebratory occasions such as birthdays or weddings, you would want to try this vanilla velvet cake.

The cake has a fine sponge texture with a buttery moistness and the right sweetness. It’s simply delicious.

And if you pair it with traditional vanilla buttercream, you will get a divine crumb of the cake. 

Though I colored my cake turquoise and purple, you don’t really have to put the coloring gel in your cake batter if you don’t want to. 

The reason I colored my cake was that I made this for one of my nieces who wanted to have a Frozen-themed birthday party. Hence the color.

So feel free to put any color you like. Or, don’t put any color at all.  

What is velvet cake?

If you ask me, a velvet cake is a moist cake with a slightly dense but moist texture and it has fine delicate crumbs that it feels like velvet in your mouth. 

But really, that’s what a velvet cake should taste like, shouldn’t it?

Just like velvet. 

It’s dense in texture, but smooth, fine, and delicate on the surface that when you touch it, your fingers will just run through nicely and smoothly.

I understand that this thing about velvety cake started from the famous red velvet cake. So any moist cake that has texture and fine crumbs like red velvet should be good to call a velvet cake.

But I leave the interpretation to you. For me, I love my cake to be moist, not sickeningly sweet, has a nice crumb, and just enjoyable to tuck in. 

And if you need to decorate the cake with edible stuff that you can make yourself, you can check these Geode Candy Cupcake Toppers. 

What makes the cake velvet?

I’m not brilliant in chemistry, to be honest. But ages ago I read somewhere (I’m sorry I can’t remember the name of the website) that baking is about doing chemistry in the right way. The proportion of every ingredient plays a major role in creating your end results, and so is the method you use for your baking. 

To achieve the proper texture of a velvet cake, I personally find that I have to use a fermented dairy product such as buttermilk, yogurt, or sour cream. 

I personally tried using buttermilk and sour cream in my cakes. But I find that yogurt gives the best result to my liking. As the cake tastes richer but somehow it feels light. It’s dense but fluffy at the same time. Overall, I’m just happy using yogurt for my vanilla velvet cake. Because it’s more practical for me as I almost always have yogurt in the fridge.

What you need to make the cake

You need eight items to make this cake. Flour, eggs, sugar, yogurt, milk, butter, raising agents, and vanilla. 

Should you want to color your cake, I suggest you use a good-quality food coloring gel. For the US brands, I love Wilton. But for the UK brand, I love Sugarflair products.

For the flour, we use cake flour for this recipe. If you don’t have it, you can make it yourself by mixing 1 cup of plain flour/ all-purpose flour with 2 tablespoons of cornflour/ cornstarch.

For this recipe, you need 250 grams of cake flour. So you can mix 210 grams of plain flour/ all-purpose flour with 40 grams of corn flour/ cornstarch. 

When it comes to yogurt, I personally prefer Greek-style yogurt. But you can use normal yogurt as long as it’s plain natural yogurt without flavor. 

To get a delicious vanilla flavor, you can use vanilla extract or vanilla essence for this recipe. However, the extract is much better as it’s more natural than the essence. You can put 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract for this recipe. 

But, if it’s possible, try to use a vanilla pod. The seeds of half of one pod are more than enough to make the cake nicely fragrant.

This recipe is enough to make 2 x 7 inch round cake tins with approximately 1 – 1.5 Inch height. When you sandwich the cakes, you‘ll have a nice 3.5 inches/ 7cm high cake.

So your cake will be perfect for a celebration cake. 

A simple way to make vanilla velvet cake

This vanilla velvet cake is simple and very easy to make.

All you have to do is put all the dry ingredients in one bowl, and put all the wet ingredients in another bowl or a jar. 

Then make a hole in the center of your dry ingredients. And pour the wet ingredients in. Mix carefully using a hand-held mixer or a stand mixer, until you get a nice thick and smooth batter.

Divide the batter equally into two 7-inch round cake pans that have been lined with parchment paper. 

Bake the cake for about 45 minutes in preheated oven at gas 3.5 or 170° Celsius/ 338° Fahrenheit.

Your cake is ready when it is springy to the touch or a skewer comes out clean.

That’s how easy it is. No fluff. Just simple.

How to store your cake

This vanilla velvet cake keeps well at cool room temperature for more than one week. You can refrigerate the cake and it stays ok for about two weeks.

If you need the cake for a celebration cake and want to freeze the cake before you are ready to decorate it, you can freeze it for up to two months. 

Make sure you let the cake at room temperature and fully wrap it with saran wrap about 2-3 layers before you keep it in the freezer. 

Take the cake out of the freezer the night before you need it. Ideally, you let it thaw in the refrigerator overnight. 

Once your cake has thawed, you must not refreeze it and you must ensure to consume the cake within a few days.

More desserts recipes

Thank you for checking this vanilla velvet cake recipe out. I hope you will try it out.

When you do, please share what you think about the recipe in the comments below. I really appreciate it.

And don’t forget to check out other cake recipes that you may like. 

• An easy sponge cake recipe with plain flour and oil.
• Dairy-free chocolate brownies traybake.
• Apple crumble cake: the comfort pudding.
• Mary Berry’s coffee and walnut cake traybake.
• Mary Berry’s apple cake. 

Happy baking.