Mary's Vanilla Cake

Mary surprised me with this cake for my birthday in 2025. She found the recipe online and made it entirely herself. She struck gold—it's a very good vanilla cake! Since then, she has made it 2 or 3 additional times just for fun. The process is a bit more complicated than for your average American-style butter cake as it uses Japanese techniques to produce a plush and soft crumb. The layers are sturdy enough to be stacked and do not sink in the middle. In many ways, it's similar to an old-fashioned hot milk cake. The batter can also be used to make cupcakes.

NOTE: Once you start beating the eggs, you have to follow through with the entirety of the cake-making process and get the batter in the oven promptly. If you delay, leaving the batter to sit for an extended period, your cake will not rise as well.

240 g all-purpose flour
2-1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

4 large eggs, at room temperature

300 g granulated sugar

1/2 cup butter

1 cup whole milk

1 TB vanilla extract

1 TB canola -or- vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 350-degrees with shelf placed in the center.

Grease two 8-inch cake pans with butter, line with parchment paper, and grease top of paper with butter, too.

Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl; set aside. (You'll be using the bowl later on after dumping out the flour, so it needs to be large enough to accommodate more than just the dry ingredients that you're adding now).

Beat eggs for 30 seconds on Speed 6 of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment.

With the mixer still going, pour the sugar in over 45 seconds.

Then beat for 7 minutes on Speed 8, or until tripled in volume and white.

While eggs are beating, heat butter and milk in microwave-safe bowl for 2 minutes, until butter is melted and milk is hot. (Note: You want the butter and milk to be hot when added to the batter, so do not do this step too far ahead).

Scatter about 1/3 of the flour across the surface of the whipped eggs in the stand mixer bowl, then beat on Speed 1 for 5 seconds. 

Add half of the remaining flour, then mix on Speed 1 for 5 sec. 

Add all remaining flour, then mix on Speed 1 for 5 – 10 sec until the flour is just mixed in. Once you can’t see flour, stop straight away as you do not want to overmix.

Pour the hot-milk-and-butter-mixture, the vanilla, and the oil into the now empty flour bowl.

To the hot milk mixture (in the former flour bowl), add roughly 1-1/2 cups of the egg mixture (from the stand mixer bowl). Use a whisk to mix until smooth – you can be vigorous here. Will look foamy.

Turn mixer back on Speed 1, then slowly pour the milk mixture (from the former flour bowl) into the egg batter (in the stand mixer bowl) over 15 seconds, then turn mixer off.

Scrape down sides and base of bowl. Beat on Speed 1 for 10 seconds. Batter should be smooth and pourable.

Pour batter evenly between both pans.

Bang each cake pan on the counter 3 times to knock out big bubbles. (Doing so will not deflate your batter, but rather will drive large air bubbles to the surface so you don't end up with holes in your finished cake crumb)

Bake 30 minutes or until golden and toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Remove from oven. Cool in cake pans for 15 minutes, then gently turn out onto cooling racks. If using as layer cakes, cool upside down so that the slight dome will flatten perfectly. Level cake = neat layers.

Once cake layers are fully cool, top with frosting of choice, or cream and fresh berries or jam.