Moist White Almond Cake with Silky Buttercream Frosting
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If you’re looking for a cake that’s soft, moist, and guaranteed to impress, this White Almond Cake is it. Made with simple pantry ingredients and plenty of almond flavor, this classic layer cake bakes up tender and fluffy every single time, then gets finished with a silky, cloud-like buttercream frosting that’s smooth, rich, and not overly sweet. This almond cake is perfect for birthdays, weddings, showers, or anytime you want a bakery-style dessert at home. Best of all, it comes together in about 45 minutes, making it just as practical as it is beautiful.
I love this cake so much that I served it at my wedding. I had it made of course. I like to bake, but left that one up to Glorious Desserts in Des Moines. Her almond cake is bad ass. My mom will order one for family celebrations and haul it 5 hours from Des Moines to Chicago for us…she’s the best.
But because I love almond cake so much, I had to have a recipe that I could make at home that I equally loved as much as Glorious Desserts.
This is it! I have made this cake plenty of times and no matter what, it’s everyone’s favorite. They actually say I don’t make it enough! My mother-in-law’s best friend made this cake for her wedding! She said it was outstanding. See! This is why I love to blog – sharing recipes and my love for almond cake inspired someone to make it for her wedding! That makes me smile. 🙂
This cake could not be any easier to make. It’s very straightforward and starts out with a cake mix that’s doctored up quite a bit. What you’re left with is a runny batter that turns into the lightest, fluffiest and moist cake that there is. The flavor is WONDERFUL. No egg yolks in this one so the cake is totally white and beautiful.
I topped it off with my favorite frosting recipe…a silky buttercream that’s made with flour. It can be slightly tricky to make, but follow the directions and you should be fine. I’ve never had an issue making it!
To give you a visual of the frosting – the flour mixture is to the left – it looks like cake batter actually and is sticky, the middle is what it looks like after it’s whipped – so fluffy! and the last is the final the product!
You can’t go wrong with this one my friends. If you need a cake, this is your recipe. You can switch it up if you don’t like almond…add lemon extract, just vanilla extract, orange extract, etc. etc. The best part of this cake is that it’s full proof and tastes amazing every time!
Wish I had a piece now!
White Almond Cake with Whipped Buttercream Frosting
This white almond cake with whipped buttercream frosting is outstanding. It's moist, has wonderful almond flavor and the frosting is so light and fluffy. The perfect cake for any celebration!
Ingredients
White Almond Cake
- 1, 15.25 ounce package white cake mix
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/3 cups room temperature water
- 1 cup sour cream, room temperature
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil (or refined coconut oil)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons pure almond extract
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 4 egg whites, room temperature
Whipped Buttercream Frosting
- 1 cup whole milk, room temperature
- 5 tablespoons all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon pure almond extract
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour 3, 8 inch or 9 inch round cake pans; set aside. You can also use 2 cake pans, the layers will just be thicker.
- In a stand-alone mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (Hand-held mixer would work, too), mix together the white cake mix, flour, sugar, and salt.
- Pour in the water, sour cream, vegetable oil, almond extract, vanilla extract and egg whites. Mix on low until all the ingredients are mixed and moistened but some lumps still remain, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary.
- Pour the batter into the prepared cake pans, and bake for 25-30 minutes. The tops should be lightly golden. Remove and let cool before frosting.
- To make the frosting, whisk 1 cup of milk with 5 tablespoons of flour in a medium sauce pan and place over medium heat until the mixture begins to sputter, whisking constantly. Continue to stir as the mixture thickens. You will know it’s done when it reaches the consistency of thick cake batter (This took only a couple of minutes for me, but it can take longer). Remove from heat and whisk in 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 teaspoon almond extract, and a pinch of salt, and set aside to cool completely - you can place in the refrigerator to speed up the cooling process.
- In a stand-alone mixer fitted with a whisk attachment (hand-held mixer would work, too), beat 2 sticks of softened room temperature butter (1 cup) with 1 1/4 cups of granulated sugar until light, fluffy, and white in color, about 3 solid minutes of beating on medium-high speed. You want the sugar to be totally incorporated and dissolved into the butter. If it’s a little gritty, don’t worry. The sugar will dissolve at the frosting sets.
- Next, add the cooled milk/flour paste to the butter/sugar mixture. Beat all ingredients for 1 minute on high-speed, scraping down the bowl halfway through. The frosting should be as light and fluffy as whipped cream. Frost the cooled cake and enjoy!
Notes
Cake will last up to 3 days in a container, or up to 5 days in the refrigerator. Unfrosted cake can be frozen for up to 3 months.
This recipe can be made into cupcakes. Bake for 15 minutes then check for doneness by inserting a toothpick into the center. It it comes out clean, they're done. If not, add a few additional minutes and try again. Frosting makes just enough for the cake. If you want a lot of frosting, I suggest doubling the recipe. Refrigerate cake if not eating right away then bring to room temperature before eating. It's delicious cold, but room temperature is ideal.
Cake Recipe: allrecipes.com Frosting: Can you stay for dinner?
Does this cake work as cupcakes? If so, what should the baking time be? Thanks!
Hi Shannon – I have never made them as cupcakes but I bet it would! I would start baking time out at 15 minutes then check them. Most cupcakes bake for about 18-22 minutes. Let me know how they turn out!
I just used this to make cupcakes for a bridal shower and they came out so perfect! It made about 34 cupcakes for this recipe.
Yum!
With this recipe do you have to make the package of white cake mix like it says on the box then add the rest?
Hi Gabi – nope! Don’t follow the package directions on the cake mix. Simply stir the cake mix with the other ingredients.
Which kind of flour to use
all-purpose!
The cake and frosting were delicious. My family critics totally enjoyed it. I had no problems with the frosting, but, I did have my doubts about “flour” in my frosting. But after tasting the frosting, yum, yum, yum. I covered half my cake with the frosting and the other half of the cake was frosted with chopped maraschino cherries added to the frosting. We couldn’t decide which tasted better.
So glad you enjoyed it Trini! I love the maraschino cherries in the frosting – yum!!
the best almond white cake ever!!! simple and delicious, I’ve made this dozens of time with nothing but rave reviews!!! I think people invite me to their parties just to ask me to make this cake for it!!! The frosting is like ice cream. Sinfully delicious and fun watching other people eat it and enjoy it.
So glad you enjoy it Sam! It’s truly the best recipe ever!
Thanks for the amazing cake recipe! I trimmed each round cake so that I could stack them and I can not stop eating the extra pieces! Yum!!
So glad you like it Katie! It’s one of my favorites!
The frosting separated for me as well. It tasted pretty good, but it looked like oatmeal??? I had to sprinkle coconut over the top to cover it up.
Hi Em,
So sorry to hear that! I have never had this problem. I am assuming that you may have over whipped the frosting causing it to separate, similar to what can happen when making fresh whipped cream. Try mixing it less next time or on a lower speed and it should come out fluffy.
Make sure the butter is not too cold and quite soft. That might help.
Thanks Suzanne! Great advice!
How many cups of batter did this make and what size pans did you use? I need maybe 7 recipies to make my daughter’s wedding cake. I want 14 in., 10 in., and 6 in. Thanks for the recipie!
Hello! I use 9 x 1 1/2 inch round pans. Truthfully, I am not sure how cups the batter actually makes but I am guessing about 2 cups per pan? My advice would be to trial and error it if you have the time!
I let it cool and mixed it with the butter and sugar but it came out pretty watery. I’m struggling with the icing, I tried it twice and can’t seem to get it right.
shoot! I hear ya…it took me 4 times to get homemade caramel sauce right last week so I completely understand. If you’re mixing it constantly over medium heat, it should come out right. If you scroll to the very bottom of the recipe, there is link “can you stay for dinner” to a very similar frosting recipe that shows the pictures which might help. Let me know if that helps!
When making the icing at the part where you heat the milk and flour is it suppose to look like oatmeal? Mine turned out with bead like things in it.
Hi Julie! It kind of looks like oatmeal and may have a few clumps but not many. It really looks like a thick cake batter. You may have burnt it a little which caused it to clump. Did you whip it with the sugar and butter? If so, how did that turn out?
In your frosting ingredients, you say 1 tsp vanilla extract and 1 tsp almond extract. In the directions, you say 2 tsp vanilla. I’m assuming it’s 1 and 1 because of the almond nature of the cake, but verification would be lovely! Thanks.
Hi Lauren – you are absolutely correct! It is 1 teaspoon of vanilla and 1 teaspoon of almond. Thanks for reaching out – I just corrected it. Enjoy the cake!!
What size of cake pans did you use?
9 inch! You can use other sizes as well. 3, 8 inch ones would work, too.
Can I use cake flour and milk instead
Hello! I haven’t tried that before but I think it would work!