WASC Cake (Cake Mix)
This easy White Almond Sour Cream Cake is so popular that it has long been referred to by its abbreviation, WASC, in the cake world.
It is a moist and flavorful layer cake recipe that is versatile enough for cupcakes, and sturdy enough to handle light carving or being covered with fondant.
WASC cake is a great example of a tried and true cake mix recipe that would please any crowd. Keep it in mind as a birthday cake, bridal shower cake, baby shower cake, and more!
Table of Contents
Why we Love WASC Cake
- It goes with just about any filling and frosting that you can think of, and you can easily change it up with add-ins and extracts to make it your own or create new variations.
- Super easy to make
- Has a from-scratch texture thanks to the sour cream in the recipe
- Is a great "base cake recipe" which can easily be transformed with add-ins and extracts.
How to Make WASC Cake
You can find the full, printable cake recipe further down in this post. Here is a quick rundown of the steps!
- Preheat: Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
- Prepare the Cake Pans: Grease and flour two 8x2 round cake pans. (You could also divide the batter between three 8 inch cake layers if you would rather have an additional layer of filling).
- Dry ingredients: In the bowl of your mixer, combine dry ingredients and whisk at least 30 seconds to blend.
- Wet Ingredients: In another bowl, combine sour cream, water, vegetable oil, eggs, vanilla extract, and almond extract.
- Combine: Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix on medium speed for 2 minutes. Stop after 1 minute to scrape the sides and bottom of bowl then continue to beat for the second minute.
- Pour into Pans and Bake: Pour into prepared cake pans and bake at 325 degrees....check at 35 minutes to see if middle of cake springs back when touched, a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake come out clean or with just a few crumbs attached, and the cake will be slightly pulled away from the pan.
Decorating the WASC Cake
The cake in our photo was frosted with our Classic Vanilla Buttercream. We used the beautiful piped buttercream technique which we teach in our free video tutorial for Cascading Rosettes of Buttercream!
There are infinite ways that this cake could be decorated, whether with a smooth finish, textured, or piped. If you are interested in cake decorating, please make sure to check out our collection of hundreds of free Cake Decorating Videos!
Recipe FAQs
More Doctored Cake Mix Recipes
We've made many doctored cake mix recipes over the years! These cakes are super moist, have wonderful flavor, and they taste like they were made from scratch.
Each of these cake mix recipes have been enhanced with additional ingredients to make them unique. Some have sour cream, some have instant pudding, fruit puree, jello, and more. There are so many creative ways to doctor up a simple cake mix!
Some of our favorites are our Easy Lemon Cake from cake mix, Easy Strawberry Cake, German Chocolate Cake from Cake Mix, and Italian Cream Bundt Cake!
Have you made this? We would LOVE for you to leave a ⭐️ rating as well as a comment and photo below! We really appreciate your feedback!
WASC Cake (White Almond Sour Cream)
Ingredients
- 1 box white cake mix, sifted (15.25 oz) (we use cake mix without pudding in the mix) This recipe will work for yellow cake mix as well.
- 1 cup all purpose flour (121g)
- 1 cup granulated sugar (200g)
- generous dash of salt
- 1 cup sour cream or plain yogurt (greek yogurt is fine also) (242g)
- ¼ Cup Canola Oil (54g)
- 1 cup water (240g)
- 3 whole eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla (8g)
- ½ teaspoon almond extract (If you don't want almond, you can substitute additional vanilla) (2g)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
- Grease and flour two 8x2 round cake pans. (You could also divide the batter between three 8 inch cake layers if you would rather have an additional layer of filling).
- In the bowl of your mixer, combine dry ingredients and whisk at least 30 seconds to blend.
- In another bowl, combine sour cream, water, oil, eggs, & flavorings. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix on medium speed for 2 minutes. Stop after 1 minute to scrape the sides and bottom of bowl then continue to beat for the second minute.
- Pour into prepared pans and bake at 325 degrees....check at 35 minutes to see if middle of cake springs back when touched, a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake come out clean or with just a few crumbs attached, and the cake will be slightly pulled away from the pan.
- We bake at 325 degrees to decrease the height of the dome on the cakes.
- Makes about 7 cups of batter.
Thank you Bebe and Melissa for your information about the recipe.
I did Thomas the Train for my grandson (thanks to your video) and it was stunning that people were asking me how much I will charge to do one. Do you have any idea about pricing this type of cake using this delicious recipe.?
i would like to make the leopard spots on the inside cake (the reason i joined in fact) but we here in the uk do not seem to have access to pkt cake mixes as you do,so i thought i would try using your white cake mix which i have tried with great success,will 1 batch of this recipe be enough batter for the cake.many thanks
Hi Jean, yes, that would work fine.
I tried making this today the batter was really runny just wondering if its meant to be or did I do something wrong? Thanks
Hi JoAnne, no, the batter is not runny.......could you have added more than the 1 cup of water?
Thanks for the reply BeBe!! The cake didn't turn out to bad it taste great but the texture is not the best. I'm in Australia so I think the cake mix size must be smaller here. Could you tell me how much the cake mix you use weighs? I would like to try again. Thanks again!!
The recipe was originally based on a cake mix that was 18.25. Then the cake mix companies ( the one we use, Pillsbury, Duncan Hines, Betty Crocker) all reduced the amount of mix in the boxes, though they added thickeners so recipes would not need changing. Just recently, I bought Duncan Hines and the weight was back to 18.25 ..........so the answer keeps changing.
Hi there, would this fill up to two 9" inch pans and 3 layer of 6" pans or how many total boxes would i need to use for these amounts? would like to make two layers of 9" inch rounds and 3 layer of 6" inch rounds... thank you.
Ok!! I think It must be the cake mix I used!! If this recipe is based on a cake mix of 18.25 oz (517g) but the cake mix i used was only 16.57oz (470g) it was a brand called greens (not sure if you have that one there). I will give it another go with a different and bigger cake mix probably Betty Crocker as I'm pretty sure we can get that here in Australia. Thank you BeBe :)
Hi Lourdes, if you double the recipe you will have enough cake batter and probably a small amount leftover.
I just tried this recipe today as cupcakes and am THRILLED with the results! Thanks so much for a wonderful recipe. I have one question (and I tried to review all 181 other comments before asking, but didn't see this one yet, so please forgive me if it's a duplicate): will this hold up to fillings? It's such a light, moist cake, I wasn't sure.
Thanks again!
Hi Kathleen, I'm happy you like the recipe. I don't remember your question ever being asked so I hope you didn't read all 181 comments. Yes, it will hold up well with fillings.