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.
BeBe & Melissa,
Im new to this community and really enjoy all the tips and recipes ya'll have to offer..... My question is , for the WASC can the APF be exchanged for cake flour ? when using the white cake mix it calls for egg whites, If I add the whole egg and reg vanilla it'll change the color and for this project I need a white cake.. how many egg whites would I need to replace the whole eggs?
thank you for your help........
Stella
Hi Stella, Yes, you can use cake flour instead of all-purpose flour. Instead of 3 whole eggs, you can use 4 egg whites to achieve a white cake. Also, you will want to use clear vanilla. Good luck with your cake.
Thank you BeBe..........
I am posting this for the benefit of those who live in Australia like me.
I tried this cake today using a 16.5oz Duncan Hines French Vanilla cake mix (widely available at Woolworths). Unfortunately, I didn't have almond extract on hand so I just added a teaspoon of vanilla extract. The batter was good for two 6x3" round pans. Took an hour for the cakes to be fully baked.
It worked out great. The cake was moist and had great texture. It sliced beautifully too. A little sweet for me but that's probably just a matter of personal taste. Also, I think it would have been okey too if I had not added the extra vanilla extract as the vanilla flavour was already strong to start with.
Hope that helps my fellow Aussie members.
Hi,what kind of flour do you use?
Hi Angelique, I use Pillsbury All Purpose Flour, other brands would be fine also.
Hi Bebe & Melissa
will this amount of batter be enough for 3 9 x 2 rounds? or do I need to double it?
thanks for your help
Stella
Hi Stella, this recipe makes approximately 7 cups batter. You will need to double the recipe to have enough for three 9 x 2 inch rounds. You will have more than you need so I would make extra layers or cupcakes and freeze until needed.
Can I use buttermilk in place of the water for this recipe?
Hi Lisa, I have not tried using buttermilk, it would add more acidity to the recipe and it already has sour cream which is also acidic. You could add maybe 1/4 teaspoon baking soda. Cake mixes are very forgiving ........let us know if you give it a try.
Hi BeBe,
I am still waitting for WASC cake receipe without cake mix.
I would like to know , my daughter's birthday coming soon..
Vaishali
Hi, just wondering if cake flour and be used in place of the all-purpose flour, when preparing the WASC recipe?