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.
i have always used duncen hins cake mix all just love it but doing lots of wedding cakes and want somthing to stand up to the stacking cakes is this still most and alot like the duckin from a box but a little denser cake?
Hi Sarah, yes it is a bit more dense. The WASC is a very popular recipe and I think you will like it for wedding cakes.
Hi Bebe and Melissa - How much batter do you recommend I use for a 10" cake?
I will be filling 2 pans and was wondering if this recipe will be enough for both, or if I need to make another.
Hi Fran, you will need to double the recipe. You will need approx. 6 cups of batter for one 10 inch pan. We use the Wilton chart for amounts as a guideline. The chart is found in Member Resources on the homepage, in the Helpful Links section. Here is a link to the chart,
New here. I want to try making the leopard print cake and it calls for two batches of this recipe. Should I make both batches all together or make them separate? I have a 6 quart mixer so it can handle it, just wondering if recipe would just be doubled or what...thanks!! Also for the leopard print cake, do you start with a yellow cake mix?
Hi! Such an awesome site thank you! I'm wanting to make the leopard print cake and saw that you use the sour cream cake but it's from a box. I always make my recipes from scratch but my vanilla etc is probably too runny, what 'from scratch' recipe would you recommend for the leopard print cake? :)
Hi Karin, you could use the Classic White Cake recipe, here is a linkhttps://www.mycakeschool.com/recipes-tutorials/classic-white-cake-scratch/
Hi Joan, I'm sorry your question was overlooked. Yes you can double the WASC recipe
I am new to the site and I am loving it. I have just used the WASC recipe for my nephews' birthday cake and everyone loved it. I used the Pillsbury classic yellow cake for the box mix and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for other box mixes to use with this recipe other than the basic yellow cake.
Hi--I'm glad that you liked the recipe! I've used this with white cake mix, yellow, chocolate, & lemon. This is a really versatile recipe--have fun experimenting! Maybe others will have favorites to share too ;00!
Hi :) When you have used a lemon mix for this recipe, what amounts of lemon and vanilla extracts do you use for it? And have you ever added any amount of food coloring to make it more yellow? PS. I absolutely LOVE your site :D
Hi BeBe,
If I don't use box cake mix what ingredients do I need to add??
Hi Vaishali, you would need to use a box cake mix for this recipe. I will try to post a White Almond Sour Cream Cake recipe soon that is made without a cake mix.