Vanilla Bundt Cake

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This moist, buttery Vanilla Bundt Cake has a soft, fine crumb and wonderful flavor. Keep it in mind for all of your special occasions, from birthdays to holidays, or just because.

This easy vanilla bundt cake tastes amazing all on it's own, or topped with fresh berries and cream. We hope that you'll give it a try soon!

Sliced Vanilla Bundt Cake on a cake pedestal.

There are so many reasons to love this recipe. Here are just a few!

  • Velvety soft texture thanks to the cream cheese and buttermilk in the cake batter.
  • Easy scratch recipe!
  • Delicious vanilla flavor (use either vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract)!
  • We love the simplicity of bundt cakes- fantastic flavor, super easy to make, and no decorating required (unless you are just feeling fancy)!

How to Make Vanilla Bean Bundt Cake

This recipe is based in part on our popular Vanilla Velvet Cake recipe. You can find the full, printable bundt cake recipe further down in this post. Here is a quick look at our steps!

  • Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and flour tube pan or bundt pan. (Ours is 10 inches across.)
  • Dry Ingredients: In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt for 30 seconds and set aside.
  • Wet Ingredients: In another bowl, add the buttermilk, vegetable oil, and vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste. Set aside.
photos of wet and dry ingredients.
  • In the bowl of your mixer, add the softened butter and cream cheese and mix at medium speed until smooth.
  • Gradually add the sugar and mix at medium speed for 2-3 minutes.
  • Add the room temperature eggs one at a time, mixing after each until the yellow of the yolk has blended.
  • With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and the milk mixture, beginning and ending with the flour mixture (We did 3 additions of the dry mixture, 2 additions of wet)
photos of the cake batter.
  • Mix the batter just until well combined. Pour into prepared bundt pan. Be careful not to fill your pan more than ¾ full if using a small bundt pan.
  • Bake at 325 degrees F for 55-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. Let cool for ten minutes in the pan on a wire rack before turning out.
  • This recipe makes 7 ½ cups of batter.

Decorating the Cake

We decorated our vanilla bundt cake with a dusting of powdered sugar (lightly tapped through a fine sifter), and fresh berries.

However, if you prefer a glaze, our easy vanilla glaze is a great choice, which is a simple combination of powdered sugar, milk, a pinch of salt, and vanilla. You could also use a chocolate glaze as with our three layer pound cake.

Vanilla Bundt Cake, sliced, on a cake pedestal.

Recipe FAQs

Most of our cakes either have cream cheese, sour cream, or buttermilk. The boost of acidity softens the gluten in the cake batter, and creates a really nice texture.

We often refer to our cakes that contain cream cheese as "Velvet Cakes" because these cakes have a very fine crumb and velvety soft texture. Make sure to check out our other recipes including White Velvet Cake, White Chocolate Velvet Cake, and Lemon Velvet Cake just to name a few!

Yes! Just as with the majority of our cake recipes, from pound cake to orange bundt cake, Italian Cream bundt cake and more, this cake freezes beautifully.

After cooling the Vanilla Bundt Cake until it is slightly warm, place it on a foil wrapped cake cardboard (for support) and wrap tightly with plastic wrap followed by foil. It will stay fresh in the freezer for up to three months!

Bundt cakes and pound cakes are larger than cake layers are therefore take longer to thaw.

For this reason, we like to move the wrapped bundt cake to the refrigerator the day before it is needed. Then, remove the next morning and continue thawing.

Many of our favorite cake recipes contain cake flour. This is because cake flour has a lower protein content which results in less gluten formation. The result is a softer, more tender cake.

Yes, you can use either vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract in this recipe. (You could use the same amount no matter which you choose.)

More Vanilla Cakes

Not only do we have many more bundt cakes and pound cakes to share with you, we also have lots of favorite vanilla cakes!

Some of our most popular are our Vanilla Buttermilk Cake, Vanilla Velvet Cake, and Vanilla Bean Cake. We also love our classic pound cake recipe as well as our sour cream pound cake!

Thanks so much for stopping by today! We hope that you'll keep this recipe in mind the next time you need a simple and delicious dessert! Make sure to check out our full collection of favorite cake recipes and cake decorating tutorials!

Vanilla Bundt Cake, sliced, on a cake pedestal.

Vanilla Bundt Cake

This moist Vanilla Bean Bundt Cake has a soft texture and very fine crumb with wonderful vanilla flavor.
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 55 minutes
Course: Dessert
Servings: 15 people
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Ingredients

  • 8 oz package cream cheese, softened (226g)
  • 1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, softened (168g)(This is equivalent to ¾ cup).
  • 2 cups sugar (400g)
  • 4 large eggs room temperature (In a hurry? Place in a bowl of warm water for 5 mintues)
  • 3 cups (342g) cake flour (342g)
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder (8g)
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda (3g)
  • ½ teaspoon salt (3g)
  • cup buttermilk
  • ¼ cup vegetable oil (we used canola oil) (54g)
  • 1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or vanilla bean paste) (16g)

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and flour tube pan or bundt pan. This recipe makes 7.5 cups batter (Don't fill pan more than ¾ full to prevent overflowing.)
  • In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt for 30 seconds and set aside.
  • In another bowl, add the buttermilk, oil, and vanilla. Set aside.
  • In the bowl of your mixer, add the butter and cream cheese and mix at medium speed until smooth.
  • Gradually add the sugar and mix at medium speed for 2-3 minutes.
  • Add the room temperature eggs one at a time, mixing until the yellow of the yolk disappears.
  • With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and the milk mixture, beginning and ending with the flour mixture (We did 3 additions of the dry mixture, 2 additions of wet)
  • Mix the batter just until well combined- be careful not to over-mix. Pour into prepared bundt cake pan.
  • Bake at 325 degrees F for 55-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. The top should spring back when lightly touched.
    Baking times may vary and so check on the cake as it approaches the end time. Let cool for ten minutes on a wire rack before turning out.
  • This recipe makes 7 ½ cups of batter.
  • Top the cake with a dusting of powdered sugar, fresh berries, or your glaze of choice!

Notes

Substitution for Buttermilk: Add 1 Tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice to a measuring cup. Add milk to the 1 ¼ cup mark, stir. Wait 5 minutes and it is ready to use.
*This makes 7.5 cups of cake batter. We normally use a 15 cup bundt pan for our bundt cakes (which has a baking capacity of 12 cups and measures 10 inches across).
Today, we used a 10 cup bundt pan which wasn't quite large enough-- it only holds about 6-6.5 cups batter. Pour any extra batter into cupcakes if you'd like. Remember not to fill your bundt pan more than ¾ full to prevent overflow.

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5 Comments

    1. Hi Susan- the wording was strange- I've adjusted! 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon of vanilla. ;0) Hope you enjoy the recipe!

    2. 5 stars
      I made this over the weekend and it was so easy. My only recommendation would be if you have a vanilla bean paste to use it. I'm pretty sure the taste will even be better. next time I will use a paste per instructions. Overall, you can do wonders by adding a fruits as a side ro compliment the cake.