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 Patty, I am not sure how much coconut you could add, maybe 1 cup. You could replace the water with coconut milk but I would leave in the sour cream. Also, instead of 2 teaspoon vanilla, you could change it to 1 teaspoon vanilla plus 1 teaspoon coconut extract. Let us know what you think, if you give it a try.
Also, would light sour cream work instead of regular sour cream?
Thanks!!
Hi Patty, Yes, you can use light sour cream. Regular sour cream has more fat and fat adds moisture to a recipe, but it will still be good using light sour cream.
BeBe, I just made your cake again because it’s so delicious. And I solved the problem of too much batter for two 1 1/2 “ pans without buying new 2” pans. I made half a dozen cupcakes, too! The grandkids will prefer having cupcakes to a slice of cake, so it’s perfect. Looking forward to serving it tomorrow for Mother’s Day.
Hi Terre, Perfect!! That is a great solution!! Happy Mother's Day!!
Hi there! Could this recipe be used for a coconut cake? Would substitute the vanilla and almond extracts for coconut? Or leave in the vanilla and just substitute the almond? Also, could you add in sweetened flaked cocunut to the batter? If you can, should I leave out or adjust any of the other ingredients? Thank you!
Hi Cathy, Yes, you could use this recipe for a coconut cake. The change that I would make to the recipe is to add 1 teaspoon coconut extract plus 1 teaspoon vanilla. I think it would be fine to fold in 1 cup sweetened coconut to the batter before putting into the pans.
HI! I need 2 - 8" cake layers that will yield 2" layers after trimming. Will this recipe work for that and how long should I start timing before checking for doneness in 8" pans? Thanks!
I made this cake with coconut milk in it and it made it too wet. I would suggest for a coconut cake to use coconut flavoring and shredded coconut, but no coconut milk.
Please ignore my previous comment above! I answered my own questions. lol I just baked this cake in two 8 x 3" Magic Line pans (don't have 8 x 2) and placed them on the lower middle rack in my oven at a calibrated 325 degrees. My layers took 48 minutes! I have no idea why, but that's about 10 minutes longer than suggested in the instructions. Perhaps the upper middle rack would have baked quicker, but they were moist and fluffy. Usually I get a too wet texture and its aggravating. This time they don't seem over or under baked. I'm going to try again later with another batch and lessen the time by 4-5 minutes and see what that produces. Thought this might help others.
Hi. Pardon my lack of knowledge of baking terminology but what do you mean by using a cake mix without pudding in the mix? I was just going to use Betty Crocker Vanilla Cake Mix. I read the ingredients, it doesn't have the word pudding in it but it has thickeners. Would that be the same as the pudding you are referring to?
Hi MGM, Pillsbury Cake Mix used to have printed on the front of the box "pudding in the mix". We do not use that brand so I don't know if it is still there. You are fine using Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker.