Small White Cake

This small white cake is a classic small batch recipe for a single-layer 6-inch cake made with egg whites only, cake flour, sour cream, and butter. With a moist, delicate crumb, it’s simple enough to make for a weeknight craving, but still feels special dressed up for a smaller celebration.

The Difference Between White Cake And Vanilla Cake

White cake … isn’t that just vanilla cake? A quick Google search might make it seem that way, but the two are different in a few important ways: flavor, texture, and, of course, color.

White cake is made with egg whites, which keeps the crumb pale and a little lighter than a vanilla cake made with whole eggs. It also usually uses a lighter hand with vanilla and gets a touch of almond extract — a flavor you may recognize in a wedding cake.

What Makes This White Cake Special

I follow the flavor, texture, and color characteristics of a traditional white cake, then I make a few small batch choices that keep the cake soft, moist, and easy to mix.

• I use the reverse creaming method, the same one I use in my 6-inch vanilla cake recipe. Butter is mixed into the dry ingredients first, which coats the flour and helps create a soft, tender texture with plenty of buttery flavor.
• Instead of all-purpose flour, I use cake flour to build on the cake’s already pillowy texture.
• To make up for the missing egg yolk, I use a combination of sour cream and milk, which adds richness and keeps the crumb moist.

The most important difference, and the thing that keeps this recipe easy, is that I don’t whip the egg whites the way many white cake recipes do. To me, that turns it into a different style of cake, closer to chiffon or even angel food cake. My cake stays a true sponge cake with a tight, tender crumb.

To keep that snowy white look, I recommend topping the cake with my light-as-air stable whipped cream. It’s simple and easy to dress up with sprinkles if this little cake is headed for a birthday celebration.

How To Make A Small White Cake

First, if you want to preserve the white hue in the small cake, opt for vanilla powder or clear vanilla extract. I purchased mine on Amazon and it has pure vanilla flavor!

Add all of the dry ingredients, including the sugar, to a mixing bowl. Give that a good stir to combine, then add the butter, cut into cubes for efficient mixing. Mix until the dry ingredients look like moistened sand.

💡 In reverse creaming, mixing the butter and dry ingredients will take a couple of minutes. It’s important there are no big chunks of butter left, or the cake may bake up with an uneven texture and pockets or hard spots.

Combine all of the wet ingredients in a liquid measuring cup — it makes pouring easy and is usually what I reach for.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry in two increments, mixing well after each addition. The batter consistency we’re going for should be smooth, almost velvety.

💡 One more note on mixing time: since reverse creaming coats the flour in butter first, it takes longer than you’d expect to fully combine everything once the wet ingredients go in. Don’t rush this step.

Baking The White Cake

You may notice I don’t use baking soda in my recipe, even though I use sour cream. So how is the cake supposed to rise as it bakes? Normally, an acidic ingredient like sour cream gets paired with baking soda to help it react and balance out. But at small batch scale, baking powder alone provides enough balance and lift for the cake to bake properly

💡 In testing, adding even a small amount of baking soda caused the cake to brown too fast on top and collapse slightly in the center. Baking powder alone was the fix.

Bake the cake until it’s lightly golden and springy to the touch. It will bake with a slight dome, so if you’re after a flat cake for decorating, slice off the domed top with a serrated knife.

Erin’s White Cake Tips

• Room temperature ingredients aren’t just a suggestion. The ingredient temperature matters here. Since reverse creaming relies on butter and liquid coming together smoothly, cold butter or cold wet ingredients can cause the batter to break or mix unevenly. Set your butter, milk, sour cream, and egg whites out about 30 minutes before you start.
• Why you should use cake flour. Cake flour has less protein than all-purpose, which means less gluten development and a softer crumb. Since this small cake is already compensating for the structure a whole egg would normally provide, cake flour helps keep the expected light texture. All-purpose flour will still bake up fine, but expect a slightly denser result.
• Turn the cake into cupcakes. Want cupcakes instead of a single layer? This batter will make about 4 to 5 cupcakes. Fill cupcake liners in a muffin pan about 2/3 full, and start checking for doneness a few minutes earlier than you would the cake.