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.
First, a follow up from my previous post: I have successfully used this recipe with both rose water and lavender (separately). It works wonderfully!!
Now a new question: can I use this recipe with a strawberry cake mix? It seems like the flavor might be diluted by the addition of sugar/flour.
Any thoughts?? Thanks, as always!!!
Follow up!!! Here's what I ended up doing: I used a strawberry cake mix and also added a 3 oz package of strawberry jello just to make sure the flavor wasn't diluted. To compensate for the extra dry ingredients, I took out about 3 T of the flour (probably should have removed part flour, part sugar instead). The cake was awesome!
This just goes to show how versatile this recipe is for just about anything!!!
Hi Kays Cupcakes! Thanks for following up! Your cake looks great and I'm glad to hear that adding the strawberry mix & strawberry jello worked well for you!
Hi Melissa and BeBe! I have a request for a full sheet cake for 80 servings for next weekend...I have Never done a sheet cake. I'm slightly anxious...can you help me with a few questions? First, is it best to make 2 11x15 cakes and put together or should I invest in a large pan? Do I still crumbcoat? How much do I fill pans? Flower nails/moist towels? I would like to torte with icing in middle to give more height. Is that normal for a sheetcake? Any other advice to help.make this cake a success would be truly appreciated! Thanks girls!! I truly would be lost without you!!!
OR...can I basically use two 11x15 pans and put smaller amounts of batter in each of them and bake both pans twice? That way, I wouldn't have to torte. I would have a total of four smaller cakes and I would put filling on top of two, then put the other two cakes on yop...THEN lay both cakes side by side and continue..have you ever done that? Do you think it would work? Please let me know what you feel is best! Thanks so much ladies!!
Hello Terri! I'm sorry for the delay, just now seeing your question!
First, you can definitely put two 11x15 cakes side by side with no issues. I've done this before using two 12x18"s when I needed a full sheet cake.
I rarely torte cake layers--I prefer to just bake the layers individually, and so what you've suggested in your follow up is more along the lines of what I would do! I would bake the layers (with a couple of flower nails) & then fill the baked layers as usual, wrap with plastic wrap, let them settle under a weight for a couple of hours or so (sheet cake pans with something placed inside are good weights for settling) and then crumb coat and frost as one. You'll want to make sure that the final cake base that these are going on is sturdy...even if you're just stacking several full sheet cake cardboards together. When it's time to put the final coat of frosting on (assuming you're using a crusting buttercream), make sure that the board is very sturdy. If the board bends in transport, you may get some hairline cracking...and so the sturdier the better. I hope this helps!! xo
Y'all are awesome, ladies. With box cake mixes--when the amount was reduced to 16.25 oz. did y'all adjust the amount of other ingredients or do you use the same amount as before?
Thanks,
MaryLouise
Hi Marylouise, When we make the WASC doctored recipe above, we do not do anything differently to account for the change in box size. We just make it as we always have with good results.
However, with our classic white doctored mix cake, we do add a bit more flour to account for the change. You can find that recipe here-
https://www.mycakeschool.com/recipes-tutorials/white-cake/
I'm so excited. I made fondant and flowers etc. First time ever. Got my icing ready to go. I have this cake in the oven and something weird is happening. I followed this recipe exactly. My cakes have a hard shell on top with air underneath the shell and uncooked cake below the air. The hard shell is what is throwing me with the air under it. I peeled a little piece of ot off and ot tastes heavenly. Any ideas what is wrong?
Hi Brandy, I am sorry there was a problem, but it sounds like the oven temperature is too high. It would be a good idea to buy an oven thermometer to check the accuracy of your oven temperature. If your oven temperature is correct, move the oven shelf down to the next level. Also, make sure to whisk the dry ingredients at least 30 seconds. You want to have an even distribution of the sugar and flour throughout the cake mix. Hope this helps. Let me know if you have other questions.
Hi, I have made this recipe for a 12x18 cake and it was awesome. I now need to bake a 12 x2 double layer and wonder if a double recipe would work for this. I have read where I need 10 cups of batter but I don't feel confident at all.
Thank you
Hi Donna, This recipe makes approximately 7 cups of batter. You will need 7 1/2 to 8 cups of batter for each 12 round pan. Doubling the recipe is very close to what you will need, so it will be your decision to have slightly less in your cake pans or make another recipe of cake batter to make up the difference. We often use Wilton's Party Cake guide for batter amounts, here is a link, . This and other information can be found on the homepage of the site. Look for Member Resources on the right side of the screen, click on Helpful Links . Also, remember that with a cake this large you will need a heating core or 2 inverted rose nails to give you even baking. This is another chart you might like to have, . Let me know if you have other questions.