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.
Hi Melissa and Bebe, I love your site. I have a couple of questions.
* How do I use a rose nail in the ball pan?
* what type of cake mix? When I use a mix I usually buy super moist mix from Betty Crocker. Would that work or should I use a non-moist mix?
Thanks! Jen
(PS: you guys have really helped my confidence. Your instructions are so easy to follow.)
One other question: have you ever tried cream cheese instead of the sour cream?
Hi Jen, the rose nail is greased and floured and placed flat side down in the center of the ball pan.....just as in your other large cake pans. I think I have used two rose nails when using the large soccer ball pan. We most often use Pillsbury cake mix with pudding in the mix when making the White Almond Sour Cream recipe so you should be fine using the Betty Crocker. We have not tried using cream cheese instead of sour cream, let us know how it turns out if you give the cream cheese a try.
Thank you for your nice comments.
I'm sure I sound dense but won't the nail get buried under batter if it is placed flat side down since the pan is round? How do I get it out of the cake?
Hi Jen, no, you don't sound dense. When you turn out your baked cake, you will see the shiny flat surface of the rose nail. You will pull it out of the cake and only a small hole will remain where the nail was. This hole can easily be filled with your frosting. Now, if you forget to put in your rose nail (which I have done) and the batter is in your pan, you can still push in the rose nail.......just be sure to push it in all the way to the bottom of the pan. Click on this link, it is a pictorial on using the rose nail, http://theicedqueen.blogspot.com/2012/02/another-use-for-flower-nail.html
Awesome! Thanks Bebe :)
Melissa or Bebe I hve made this cake several time for carving cake I have even made it for regular cake I love it! But I am having issues with it falling apart when I try to carve it I follow the recipe to the letter but I'm not sure why its falling apart while I'm trying to carve it. It's almost like its to moist. Any suggestions or help is very appreciated I have a cake this week and its a 3 D Mallard duck cake any suggestions???
Your loyal student
Beverly
Hi Beverly-This recipe should be fine for basic carving. For more involved carving, I use the "Durable" recipe in the Recipes section. Do you use a brand of cake mix that has pudding in the mix? We use Pillsbury which does contain pudding. If you use Duncan Hines, it does not have pudding and would therefore be less dense. Also, when possible, I like to carve the cakes when they are partially frozen. This helps to keep tearing and excessive crumbling under control. I hope this helps!!
Hi Melissa, can I use strawberry cake mix for this, and what do I put the 1/2 of extract, strawberry extract? Please help. I need to do a strawberry cake and to be on the safe side, I want to do a doctored one. Thanks in advance. You're the best.
Is the sour cream replacing the oil?
Hi Rosi, there are some versions of the WASC recipe that have oil, I think it is 2 Tablespoons. With the sour cream in the recipe we don't think it is needed.
Thank u for your quick response BeBe.