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 made these for my daughter's class for her birthday with a chocolate buttercream and they were a huge hit! I was wondering if there was a chocolate variation so I could pair it with a peppermint buttercream for her Christmas party?
Hi Jeanette, Wonderful! I 'm happy you like to recipe! In the recipe section we have the Chocolate Sour Cream Cake (doctored) recipe. Here is a link:
https://www.mycakeschool.com/recipes-tutorials/chocolate-sour-cream-cake/
Peppermint buttercream would be delicious paired with the chocolate!
I love your recipe but i have one question. My oven temp is 325 and baked this cake for 52 mins as the tooth pick came out completely clean.
But when cut the cake, the top was cooked completely, slighly brown color on the side and at the bottom, but the lower part of the cake was not fully cooked.
Can someone please explain why this is happening? Is it because of milk? My oven has 6 tiers and electric. I placed my rack on 3rd which is middle. Should i place my cake to little lower rack?
I removed the uncooked cake and cooked cake tasted amazing. I am in desperate need to make this recipe success for me so please help me understand what am i doing wrong.
BTW the cooked cake (After removing the uncooked part) tasted amazing.
Please Help!!
Hi Isha, I am sorry you had this problem. If you were baking in 8 or 9 inch round pans it should not have taken 52 minutes. You should be fine to bake on the middle rack of your oven. It sounds as though your oven is not heating properly. It will be easy to check this. Buy an oven thermometer, it is inexpensive and can be found at Target, most grocery stores, Amazon. Just place in your oven to see if it is heating to the temperature you set for baking. Let me know how it goes.
Hi there
My cake mix requires oil, do i still not add butter of oil at all?
Hi Jacqui, Don't use the directions on the back of the cake mix box. We do not use oil or butter in the recipe. Some White Almond Cake Mix recipes on other sites use 2 Tablespoons oil and you can add that if you like. Let us know if you have other questions.
HI, I have baked this cake using tofu instead of eggs. I kept all other ingredients same. I didnt have 2 8 inch pans so used 9 inch cake pan.
I baked at 325 with wet strips for 50 mins. The tooth pick came out clean from the center. But when i cut the cake it was undone from the center (goomy looking)
I checked my oven temps with oven thermometer (350 maintained perfectly for 1 hr in the center middle rack. However 325 was reading at 340 over 1 hr)
I am going to give it a try one more time using the convention method, still using tofu, and will be baking at 350 using 2 8 inch.
I have never baked 2 pans at the same time, so can you please guide me on things to watch out for?
Thank you
Hi Isha, I am sorry you had a problem. We don't have experience using tofu instead of eggs, though I have read that tofu can be used as a substitute. When inserting the toothpick to check for doneness, make a slightly bigger hole so when pulling out the toothpick the crumbs that are clinging to it will not be pulled off. If the cake is not done it will show up on the toothpick. I am glad you are going to give it another try using two 8 inch pans. Have the cake pans at least 1 inch apart from each other and the pans should not touching the sides of the oven. If you have a standard size oven you should not have any problem with space. You can bake at 350 degrees if you like, we bake it at 325 degrees so the cakes will not dome as high in the center. The cake will begin to pull away from the sides of the pan when it is done, also check with a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake. Hope all goes well. Let us know how it goes
Made this for a gender reveal party, used your crusty buttercream frosting as well, and topped it with pastel M&Ms. it was absolutely delicious! The only thing I would change is using 9” cake pans next time because the layers were - I can’t believe I’m saying this - too high. I had to trim off the edges to make it look nicer because it had spilled up and over my pans. My cakes never rise well and are just okay. But this one? Outstanding!
Hi Terre, Our 8 inch round cake pans are 2 inches deep. Some 8 inch pans are 1 1/2 inches deep. Possibly that was the problem. I will add the depth of pans to the recipe. It will also be fine to bake in 9 inch pans. We are so happy you enjoyed the recipe. Thanks so much for posting your thoughts!!
Hi dear what about if i use petty crocker instead meaning with pudding mix any changes on ingredients
Can I add coconut to the batter, or will it make it too heavy? Also, can I add coconut milk as well in place of the water and light sour cream?
Thanks!!