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 Michaela, you will need to double the recipe. You will definitely have batter left over to make cupcakes or a layer to freeze for another cake......layers can be frozen for 2 months if wrapped properly.
Hi Melissa and Bebe... I'm planning on making this for my sister's bridal shower cake (a mushroom/toadstool), and I wanted to use my Wonder mold pan for the top, and then stack it on top of 3 6'' rounds. I'm not very well-versed yet with figuring out amounts of batter, so my question is in order to make enough batter for all those cakes, would I double or triple this recipe?
I'm very excited..you both have given me a lot of confidence to try new things with my cakes!
Just tested this recipe and instead of Almond extract, I used Lemon extract, YUMMO!!!
Hi Sweetneens, I think you will be using 5 to 6 cups batter in your wonder mold pan so I think I would say you need to triple the recipe to be sure to have enough for all of your cakes.
Hi Cindy, yes, I love lemon in that recipe also, I think I'll add that as an option on the recipe.
How if we cant find " the cake mix". Is there any other ingredients to replace it?
Hello Melissa & BeBe, Just reading all of the comments now after having made this recipe 3 times with the 15.25 ounce Betty Crocker Super Moist Vanilla mix. I can report that I have had much success with the reduced mix. Cake is moist and delicious. I like the idea to supplement with another mix to compensate for the 3 ounces. Wondering if more flour would also work? Thank you for your site. It is incredible!
Hi All! I'm a new member and can't wait to try this recipe out with the leopard print version! I'm also going to make a zebra stripe layer, too, I think! Any suggestions as to how to make it look good without all the black going to the bottom of the pan?
Hi Alison, have you seen the zebra stripe blog entry? Here is a link to that tutorial. https://www.mycakeschool.com/how-to-make-a-cake-with-zebra-stripes-on-the-inside/
Hi Fran, I have tried adding 6 T. flour to the Pillsbury cake mix and it taste ok but was more dense. We called customer service for Pillsbury about the change in package weight. We were told that the mix had been reformulated and was now a thicker consistency.
Hey! :)
I was wondering if this would be enough batter to fill two 10" cakes that are 3" thick. If not, how would I make enough to fill the pan? Also, how many gum paste roses would it take to cover the top of a 10" cake, and would I need to put in the Wilton cake support things if I were stacking the two 3" cakes on top of each other. And my last question, is this batter thick enough to make the leopard design on the inside? Thank you, and I'm sorry for all the questions lol :)
Hi Samantha, you would need to double the recipe or make twice. I would put a greased and floured rose nail into the center of your pan to distribute heat to the center of your cake batter.
For the gum paste rose question: you could turn over one of your cake pans and place your completed roses on top to determine the number you need.
You don't need the support dowels for your two cake layers.
Yes, the White Almond Sour Cream is thick enough for the leopard design.
Hi Melissa, do you have a from scratch recipe which can be altered to this? We don't really have box cake mixes in UK x