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,
I tried this recipe last night, but my cake was extremely gummy and dense. I baked it past the 35 min mark, but do you think I should've let it bake a little longer? Thanks, Dawn
P.S. Love, Love, Love your site!!
Hello I wonder if you could help me? I baked this recipe this morning and followed it exactly. But my cakes had sunk a little in the middle. I'll turn it over and use the bottom of the cake which is perfect. The cake has a nice height. No one would know about the sinkhole :). I wonder if it was because my thermofan/convection oven was turned to 160Celcius as stated on the cake box.I baked the cake for 35 mins and then had to bake it for a further 5 mins. Do you think I should have baked it at 170C instead? Regards
Marie
hi melissa, can you tell me what cake mix that can be purchased in australia that dosent have pudding mix, not sure where to get the pillsbury or duncan hines in australia..many thanks
Hi there just checking in regarding the above. Have you had a chance to sort out my problem. Any suggestions would be most grateful.
Regards
Marie
Hi Marie-Anne--Thanks for checking back in with us! How large were your layers? It may be that you need a heating core (or an inverted rose nail which can be used as a heating core) to help ensure even baking. We do this when baking especially thick layers of cake, and also for cakes that are 10 inches in diameter or greater. What type of cake mix do you use? For us, our box calls for 350 degrees F and we reduce it slightly to 325 F. If the trouble continues, you could also check your oven temperature with an oven thermometer to make sure that it is heating properly. Let us know if you continue to have trouble!
Hi Kerrie--I wish that I could help! I'll let you know if I am able to find anything online. Just fyi-- the Pillsbury (which we often use) and Betty Crocker do have pudding in the mix....and Duncan Hines does not. Do you by chance have Betty Crocker?
yes melissa we do have betty crocker..i will try that one then..many thanks
Hi girls,
Can you use a box red velvet cake for this? OR should I use the red velvet cake recipe already listed in this section? I just wanted one that was dense enough to carve...thanks!
Hi Terry, you can use a red velvet cake mix for this. You could add an additional egg, it will give a bit more density, leave out the almond flavoring and use 1 teaspoon vanilla instead of 2. I would also add 2 to 3 teaspoons (sifted) unsweetened cocoa powder. The scratch red velvet cake in the recipe section is not dense enough for carving. How much carving will you be doing? The WASC is good for limited carving, I would not recommended it for the topsy turvy, tapered cakes, or more involved projects. If your project has a lot of carving I would use the Durable recipe from the recipe section.
Hi ladies - Have you tried adding mini chocolate chips to the batter? Just wondering if they held up or sank to the bottom. Thank you!
Hi Fran, yes, we have added mini chocolate chips and they stayed in the batter and didn't sink to the bottom.
Thank you for your response, BeBe!