White Almond Sour Cream Cake
We LOVE this White Almond Sour Cream Cake! It is so moist and delicious with a velvety soft texture and fine crumb.
This cake has been one of our most popular cake recipes from scratch over the years, and is definitely one of my favorites! We have a cake mix version (WASC Cake) as well!
Table of Contents
How to Make White Almond Sour Cream Cake
This delicious scratch White Almond Sour Cream Cake is a creamy and flavorful cake, with a melt-in-your-mouth texture.
This is thanks in part to the Reverse Creaming Method of Mixing, which calls ingredients to be added in a different order than the traditional creaming method. The result is a slightly dense, velvety soft cake (as with our chocolate cake from scratch and orange dreamsicle cake).
You can find the full white almond sour cream cake recipe below, but here is a quick look at our steps!
- First, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 8 x 2 inch pans.
- In a small bowl, combine eggs, vanilla, almond extract, milk, & sour cream. Whisk until blended & set aside.
- Mix the dry ingredients (cake flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt) in the mixer for 30 seconds so the baking powder and salt will be well incorporated into the flour and sugar.
- Slowly add the pieces of butter a few at a time while the mixer is on medium speed. Beat for approximately 1 minute or until the dry ingredients are crumbly and moistened by the butter, giving it the look of coarse sand. Scrape the sides and bottom of bowl.
- Next, slowly add approx. half of the egg mixture with the mixer on very low speed then increasing to medium speed for 1½ minutes. The batter will be thick and fluffy. Scrape bottom and sides of bowl. Add the remaining egg mixture in two pourings, scraping the bowl and beating for 20 seconds after each addition.
- Divide the cake batter between the prepared cake pans.
- Finally, bake the cake layers at 350 degrees F for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pans 10 minutes then turn out. Makes 7 cups batter
Recipe FAQs
More Cakes with Almond Flavor
We've made several almond cakes over the years! While this White Almond Sour Cream Cake has a light almond flavor, others like our popular Almond Cake recipe have a rich almond flavor.
We also have an a great Almond Cream Cake, Almond Coconut Cake, Lemon Almond Cake, and many more!
Thanks so much for stopping by! We hope that you enjoy this recipe. Make sure to check out our full collection of Vanilla Cakes (which also includes yellow cakes and white cakes)!
Our Vanilla Velvet Cake and Vanilla Buttermilk Cake are two more popular options!
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White Almond Sour Cream Cake
Ingredients
- 3 Large eggs, room temperature (If in a hurry, place in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes.)
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract (8g)
- 1 tsp. almond extract (4g)
- ⅓ c milk (73g)
- 1 cup sour cream (242g)
- 2 ½ c cake flour (285g)
- 1 ½ c granulated sugar (300g)
- 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder (12g)
- ½ teaspoon salt (3g)
- 1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, slightly softened (170g) unsalted butter, slightly softened (Do not soften in microwave). It shouldn't be overly soft, but soft enough to easily dent when pressed.
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Grease and flour two 8 x 2 inch pans.
- This recipe uses the reverse creaming method of mixing- the order of ingredients is a bit different than the traditional method.
- In a small bowl, combine eggs, vanilla extract, almond extract, milk, & sour cream. Whisk until blended & set aside.
- Mix the dry ingredients (cake flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt) in the mixer for 30 seconds so the baking powder and salt will be well incorporated into the flour and sugar.
- Slowly add the pieces of butter a few at a time while the mixer is on medium speed. Beat for approximately 1 minute or until the dry ingredients are crumbly and moistened by the butter, giving it the look of coarse sand. Scrape the sides and bottom of bowl.
- It is important to SLOWLY add approx. ½ of the egg mixture with the mixer on very low speed then increasing to medium speed for 1½ minutes -- the batter will be thick and fluffy. Scrape bottom and sides of bowl. Add the remaining egg mixture in 2 pourings, scraping the bowl and beating for 20 seconds after each addition. It is now ready to pour into pans.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pans 10 minutes then turn out. Makes 7 cups batter
What is cake flour, here in UK we have plain or self raising. ?
Hi June, I think our all purpose flour is the same as the plain flour you have in the UK. Cake flour is made from soft winter wheat and has lower protein than all purpose flour, giving you a more tender cake. This is the formula for changing all-purpose flour to cake flour …..for each cup of all-purpose flour remove 2 Tablespoons flour and replace those 2 Tablespoons with 2 Tablespoons cornstarch. This recipe has 2 1/2 cups cake flour so you will measure out 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour remove 5 Tablespoons and replace that flour with 5 Tablespoons cornstarch. Whisk to blend it all together and it is ready to use as cake flour. Hope this helps.
I noticed that most of the recipes you publish call for a mixing of the dry ingredients and then an addition of the butter to create a crumb like substance. I just want to know the school of thought behind this mixing process. I'm not a "super baker" or anything, but i don't recall seeing this method before. I am more familiar with creaming butter and sugar together and then adding the eggs and finally the dry ingredients.
thanks
Hi Angla, We first read about the reverse creaming method in Rose Levy Beranbaum's book TheCake Bible. She uses it in all of her cakes. She thinks there is less chance of over beating the batter causing a tough cake. We like using both methods, reverse and conventional. The reverse creaming method blends the flour with the butter before liquid is added, the flour is coated with the fat and as a result less gluten is formed. This will give you a more tender cake. The cake layers usually do not rise quite as high and the cake will have a fine texture with a tight crumb. You will get the best results with this method using a highi-ratio recipe, that is one that has more sugar than flour by weight.
The conventional creaming method is what most people are familiar with, beating the butter then creaming the butter and sugar. This will add a lot of air into the batter and give you a lighter less dense cake. We like and use both methods. You can use the conventional creaming method with any of the reverse creaming recipes on the site. Melissa will be making a video soon demonstrating the reverse creaming method.
Wow! I love that you ladies are so professional and quick to respond to your messages. Keep up the great work. You have a fantastic system!
Thanks for this fantastic recipe! I will be making this from now on whenever I need a white cake! It tastes amazing as is, or I may substitute vanilla extract for the almond extract for a more classic white cake flavor. Absolutely love this recipe!
HI Liz, Thank you for leaving a comment, so glad you like this cake! I hope you will try leaving out the almond, you will have a great vanilla cake. Since I am not a fan of almond flavoring, that is what I do.
What is the weighted amount of flour used if I preferred to weigh it for consistency sake. Thanks.
Hi Whitney, we have the weight measurements right next to the cup measurements. 285g is the cake flour amount. Hope you enjoy the cake!! ;0)
Can the recipe be doubled?
Hi Nelsonaxis, I have doubled the recipe with no problem.
This cake was awesome! Just what I was looking for....I felt totally weird whipping the batter so much, but it definitely turned out to benefit the cake texture ;)
It did shrink quite a bit, is that normal? Texture was great though.
Thx!