White Almond Sour Cream Cake

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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!

Delicious Scratch White Almond Sour Cream Cake Recipe by MyCakeSchool.com

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!

  1. First, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 8 x 2 inch pans.
  2. In a small bowl, combine eggs, vanilla, almond extract, milk, & sour cream. Whisk until blended & set aside.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. Divide the cake batter between the prepared cake pans.
  7. 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

You will notice in the photo that the white almond sour cream cake itself is not stark white, due to the fact that we use the whole eggs (rather than just the egg whites), and butter instead of shortening.  

This gives the cake a soft yellow shade. The egg yolks and butter add richness and flavor to the recipe, and so we do not mind the yellow crumb.

If you'd like to try a cake that is lighter in color, don't miss our delicious White Velvet Cake! It contains cream cheese which adds richness and seems to lighten the color as well! Our scratch White Cake is another great option too!

I just love the balance of vanilla with a hint of almond in this flavorful recipe. However, as subtle as the almond flavoring is, if you are truly not a fan of almond, you are going to notice it.

No worries! Simply leave out the almond flavoring and you will have an amazingly moist and flavorful White Sour Cream Cake! You can substitute additional vanilla for the almond extract if you'd like!

This White Almond Sour Cream Cake is amazing with so many different fillings and frostings. It is hard to pick a favorite! In the photo, we have frosted our cake with our Classic Vanilla Buttercream Frosting recipe. 

You can find a listing of our favorite frostings in the Frostings and Glazes category of our Recipes section. Here are a few more ideas:

Yes! Just as with most of our cake recipes, from orange cake to lemon cake, pound cake, and more, these white almond sour cream layers freeze beautifully. Make life easier and work well in advance! They will stay fresh in the freezer for up to three months.

Once your cake layers have cooled (or almost cooled completely), wrap each layer individually in plastic wrap followed by foil. For more stability, we often freeze each layer on a foil-wrapped cardboard cake circle before wrapping. Into the freezer they go!

To Thaw: Move the wrapped layers from the freezer to the kitchen counter. Allow to sit, still wrapped, on the counter for 30-45 minutes before unwrapping. Thaw to desired amount for assembling the cake. (Some bakers like to assemble their cake layers while still partially frozen as they are less fragile.).

Sour cream adds a wonderful richness to cakes and it also enhances the texture. The boost of acidity softens strands of gluten in the cake batter, making for a more tender cake.

Some of our other favorite cakes that call for sour cream are: Chocolate Bundt Cake, Orange Dreamsicle Cake, Chocolate Cake from Scratch, and Pumpkin Spice Cake!

Amazing White Almond Sour Cream Cake Recipe from Scratch! Super moist and delicious! My Cake School Cake Recipes, Cake Tutorials, and More!

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!

Keep this White Almond Sour Cream cake in mind the next time you need a birthday cake recipe, potluck dessert, bridal or baby shower cake, holiday cake recipe, and more.

We have hundreds more cake recipes and free cake decorating tutorials to share with you!

Amazing White Almond Sour Cream Cake Recipe from Scratch! Super moist and delicious! My Cake School Cake Recipes, Cake Tutorials, and More!

White Almond Sour Cream Cake

This super moist and delicious scratch White Almond Sour Cream Cake is rich with a velvety soft texture. Perfect when paired fruity frostings, chocolate frostings, vanilla buttercream, and more.
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 35 minutes
Course: Dessert
Servings: 0
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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)
  • 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
4.43 from 57 votes (57 ratings without comment)

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317 Comments

  1. Hi Nancy...Good morning! If you are referring to the Scratch recipe I posted on my website and also on Cake Central, I recently made an 11x 15 sheet cake, in which I poured the entire (full) recipe into. I lined the bottom with parchment after greasing it with the shortening/flour/oil recipe mixture, lightly greased the parchment, 4 flower nails/cores, and instead of the baking strips, cut a towel into strips, overlapped it and pinned it in several places. It worked beautifully. As I have discovered recently, it appears that the cake, with both the cores and baking strips, will dome a little. If just using the baking strips, it's relatively flat. However, a cake this size definitely needed both. The pan was 2" and the cake rose to basically 2" on the sides, with a little doming in the center. As I recall, it was about half to a little more then half full. So, in an 8" pan (actually all pans), I would suggest a test bake, making the half batch and filling your pan half full to start with and see if it's what you want. If you're using 3" high pans, start with the 8" round and see if it bakes to your liking. If not, increase the batter in the pan and bake again. Hope this helps. Best of luck. Have an awesome day! Thanks for asking! Fran

  2. Fran, thank you for your super informative response. It is very helpful! I am going to take your advice and do a test bake with the 3" high 8 inch pans. I will test one pan with 2 flower nails and the baking strip and I will test the other pan with just the batter and nothing else and see what happens. This will be a fun experiment :) Thanks again!

  3. With the convectional creaming method for the white almond vanilla cake, does the butter need to be soft and, liquids room temp? Do must it be somewhat cool?

  4. Marvellous cake!!!! We enjoyed our party with this awesome cake, Thanks for sharing this wonderful recipe. Thanks alot!!!!!!!

  5. Hi. For butter recipe says - 1 1/2 sticks (12 tblsp) - 1 1/2 sticks does not equal 12 tablespoons or am I incorrect? Just want to be sure I am following recipes correctly.

  6. Hi Lad, On the wrapper of one stick of butter, there are markings for the number of tablespoons. There are 8 tablespoons in one stick......so 4 tablespoons in 1/2 stick. The various brands of butter I have bought have the tablespoons markings. How is your butter packaged? I don't want to confuse anyone.

  7. So I tried this recipe in April and was super disappointed with the results. I decided to give it another try this morning and realized that the grams for the milk is wrong. I bake by weight and that is what I followed the last time. 1/3 cup of milk is not 73grams. I don't thing the grams for the sour cream is correct either...I will they it by volume and hopefully get the same results as everyone else

  8. Those are the gram weights on my scale for the milk and sour cream. I see from your April 4 post that your cake was gummy. Gummy streaks in a cake layer is a sign that the cake was mixed too long or at a speed that was too high. It is best if the cake batter is not mixed above medium speed. Hope all goes well this time.

  9. What's safer to go with then , volume or weights ? I'm also assuming they are USA measurements as here in Australia our volume is slightly different , eg 1cup USA is 240ml and Australia is 250ml