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This easy yellow cake recipe with a quick chocolate ganache frosting is tender, classic perfection. If you’re craving cake in a hurry, this is your recipe.
Why we love this recipe
Sometimes you just want a piece of cake without a lot of fuss. Whether that’s on a weeknight or for a kid’s birthday party, I love this yellow cake for its simplicity, light texture, and nostalgic flavors.
This cake boasts:
- Almost impossibly light, fluffy moistness
- Dense chocolate frosting (adapted from my sour cream ganache)
- Simplicity
- Sort of vague nostalgia for a version of Americana you never quite possessed
- SPRINKLES
To all that, I say: Yes, PLEASE.
What you’ll need
Here’s a quick glance at the ingredients you’ll need to make this recipe. It’s not much!
- Cake flour is a lower-protein flour that’s been ground to a finer consistency than all-purpose flour. It’s necessary for this recipe, so don’t substitute. See the FAQ section below for more information.
- It’s important to have your ingredients at room temperature for maximum fluffiness.
How to make it
Here’s what you’ll do to make the best yellow cake recipe. You can see all the steps in action in the video that accompanies this post. Find all the details in the recipe card below.
- Sift together the dry ingredients.
- Beat the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Then beat in the eggs and vanilla until incorporated.
- On low speed, alternate adding the dry and wet ingredients, just until incorporated.
- Bake at 350°F for about 20 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting.
Expert tips and FAQs
Cake flour is made from “soft” wheat with a low protein content — usually 7 to 9 percent (vs. the 10 to 12 that you’ll find in all-purpose flour). It’s also more finely milled than all-purpose flour. This combination gives cakes a light tenderness that goes above and beyond.
No, the cake won’t turn out the same if you substitute all-purpose flour. If that’s what you’d like to use, I’d recommend this cake or this one (both among our absolute favorites of all time).
You’ll find people suggesting that you can mix cornstarch into all-purpose flour to make a cake flour substitute. I really don’t believe in this method — I’ve tried it in a pinch, and it really does not yield the same result as cake flour at all.
Save recipes with cake flour for when you’ve got it. There are lots of great cakes out there that don’t call for it.
Here are a few great options: Swans Down // Softasilk // King Arthur.
We’ve provided the measurements in both volume and weight below, so if you have a digital kitchen scale, flick it to the grams setting and weigh everything for perfect, precise results. If not, it’s critical to fluff your flour with a spoon to make sure it isn’t too dense in the container. Then use the spoon and level method to measure: spoon the fluffed flour lightly into your measuring cup and run the flat side of a butter knife across the top to level it off.
More of our very favorite cake recipes
- Norwegian gold cake with sour cream ganache (this my personal favorite of all time)
- Buttermilk chocolate cake
- The Silver Palate’s yellow cake (with white wine in the batter!)
- Carrot cake with not-too-sweet cream cheese frosting
- Raspberry lemon cheesecake
Summarize & Save This Content On
Yellow Cake Recipe with Chocolate Frosting
Ingredients
For the yellow cake
- 2 cups (240 grams) cake flour (see notes 1 and 2 below)
- 2 teaspoons (7 grams) baking powder
- ½ teaspoon (3 grams) fine sea salt
- 8 tablespoons (112 grams) unsalted butter
- 1 cup (200 grams) sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- ¾ cup (177 ml) whole milk
For the chocolate frosting
- 5 ounces (142 grams) semi-sweet chocolate chips
- ½ cup (120 grams) sour cream
- 1 tablespoon (15 ml) whole milk
- 1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla extract
- Pinch of fine sea salt
- Rainbow sprinkles
Instructions
For the yellow cake
- Have all ingredients at room temperature.
- Preheat oven to 350°F with a rack in the center. Butter and flour a 9×13-inch baking pan, tapping out any excess flour.
- Into a medium mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
- In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle, beat butter and sugar together on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about three minutes.
- Beat in eggs one at a time and then the vanilla. Once fully incorporated, beat for three more minutes.
- Reduce mixer speed to low. Alternate between adding the flour mixture (in 3 parts) and the milk (in two parts), starting and ending with flour. Mix just until batter is smooth — do not overmix.
- Spread batter evenly into prepared pan.
- Bake for about 20 minutes (check at 18), just until a cake tester comes out from the center with a few crumbs clinging to it. Cake will be pale, not brown.
- Set pan over a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.
For the chocolate frosting
- Melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler or in short bursts (about 30 seconds each) in the microwave, stirring between bursts.
- When melted, stir in sour cream, milk, vanilla and salt until smooth and glossy.
- Spread immediately onto cooled cake.
- Decorate with sprinkles. Frosting will set over time.
Notes
- Use cake flour for this recipe. Cake flour is made from “soft” wheat with a low protein content — usually 7 to 9 percent (vs. the 10 to 12 that you’ll find in all-purpose flour). It’s also more finely milled than all-purpose flour. This combination gives cakes a light tenderness that goes above and beyond. Good choices are Swans Down // Softasilk // King Arthur.
- I always recommend weighing your ingredients. If you don’t have a scale, use the spoon and level method to measure your flour. I use a relatively low weight per cup in my recipes, and your cakes risk being dry if you pack your flour too densely.
- You can make this cake anytime on the day you’d like to serve it.
- Keep leftovers tightly sealed at room temperature for up to three days.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
