Simple Cake Recipe (Easy & Delicious Vanilla Cake)
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When searching for a simple cake recipe, it doesn’t get easier than this deliciously moist vanilla cake recipe. All it needs is a few simple ingredients like cooking oil, instant pudding mix, egg, water and vanilla cake mix and you are on your way to the best simple cake recipe around.
When I think of simple things in life, I think of moments that may not amount to much from a monetary standpoint but are worth more than anything else you could own. That’s the way I feel about this simple cake recipe. It brings back memories of a time gone by. Sunday mornings sitting with my Granddaddy and watching him as he tried to teach me how to wiggle my ears! We would be laughing and eating this simple sponge cake Mama made. Life truly did seem much simpler then.
Speaking of simple things, let’s jump into making this simple cake. This easy cake recipe uses a cake mix to keep things simple. Then we add eggs, water, oil, and vanilla pudding mix to ensure it’s perfectly soft and moist, and bursting with vanilla flavor. Once you mix the ingredients together, pop the cake batter into a bundt cake pan and patiently wait for it to bake.
Then you can serve it however you like. You might want to keep things plain, whip up a simple glaze to go with the simple sponge cake, or add fresh strawberries and vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. I’ll leave that choice up to you!
Recipe Ingredients
- Cooking oil
- Egg
- Vanilla instant pudding
- Water
- Yellow cake mix
How to Make a Simple Vanilla Cake
Toss all dry and wet ingredients in a bowl.
Whistle or dance a bit because this recipe isn’t complicated so you can occupy your mind with more lighthearted pursuits.
Mix it all up for about two or three minutes, until well blended.
Now you can grease and flour your cake tin but I prefer to just spray the living mess out of it with cooking spray.
I’m a role model for laziness, I know, but doing it my way gives you at least another 45 seconds with your family :). See? I’m actually just promoting family togetherness!
Pour the cake batter into your bundt cake tin and bake it at 350 for about an hour. Check it at about the 45-minute mark.
Fortunately for me, I have little oven guards.
Let it sit in your pan for 10 minutes before turning it out.
How long should I let the cake cool?
10 minutes is the magic number in cakes.
You should always let cakes cool for that amount of time and they turn out so much nicer!
At this point, you can eat the cake plain, apply a glaze, or serve it this way, with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream and fresh strawberries.
I love strawberry shortcake and a slice of this is the perfect foundation!
To learn how to make homemade whipped cream, see this post.
Storage
- Store the cake, covered, at room temperature for up to 2 days. It will also last in the fridge for up to 5 days.
- Alternatively, freeze the cake for up to 3 months.
Recipe Notes
- As mentioned, use this vanilla cake recipe as a base and you can top it or serve it however you like. Here are some serving suggestions:
- Ice the cooled cake with my 7-minute frosting or creamy chocolate frosting.
- Apply a vanilla glaze (find a simple recipe on my orange cake recipe post).
- Serve with whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream and fresh berries, chocolate sauce, or caramel sauce.
- Simply dust the cake with powdered sugar.
- For a , add some frosting and pop some sprinkles on top.
- To make a , split the between two pans.
- You can totally use this to make a batch too. You’ll want to reduce the time to about 20 minutes though.
Recipe FAQs
Can I make this cake in a 9×13 pan?
Yes, you can make this homemade cake in any size pan you like. I just chose a bundt cake pan because I hadn’t made one in a while. But do whatever cranks your tractor. I am partial to a Texas sheet cake, as is evident here and here.
You may also like these other easy cake recipes:
Chocolate Pound Cake with Fudge Glaze
Chocolate Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting
Pineapple Upside Down Cake (Super Moist)
Ingredients
- 1 box yellow cake mix
- 1 box instant vanilla pudding mix 3.4 oz
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup water
- 1/3 cup oil
Instructions
- Mix all of the ingredients together with an electric mixer until well blended.1 box yellow cake mix, 1 box instant vanilla pudding mix, 4 eggs, 1 cup water, 1/3 cup oil
- Pour the cake batter into the greased bundt pan. Bake at 350 for 50 minutes to an hour.
- Let the bundt cake sit in the pan for 10 minutes before turning out.
Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.
— Charles Mingus
Submitted by Emily. To submit your quote, please click here! Thank you!
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it is hard to narrow the list-several are favorite bowls, but if I have to pick I think it is my mom’s handkerchief basket. It was a flat, maybe 3 inches deep and 15 inches in diameter, dark colored woven reed basket. That is not the significance though. She used only real cloth handkerchiefs in our house-no paper tisues. She would go grab a handkerchief if we had tears, hand you one as you left for school, especially if you had a cold. That same cold would mean your chest would be greased at night with Vicks Salve and one of dad’s handkerciefs safety pinned around your neck. The handkechiefs were of varying degrees of good.Don’t take a good one to school. There are two other memories that this triggers. One is that a new handercief for mom made a fine mother’s day or birthday gift as they were a dime at the time. The other is sitting at the mangle iron as we were “allowed ” to do flat work which we thought was a fun thing , not realizing it was a chore. Now some of the younger readers are probably wondering what in the heck is a mangle!
Christy – I just LOVE this site. We always have a houseful of people (’cause we are those people) and I usually make something quick, lots of times from your site. When someone says somethin’ – and they do when it came from you – I just send them on over. Without a doubt the thing that says home to me is my Mamaw’s “blue willa” china. Now, it sits in my china cabinet so I can look at it all the time. This is not really “blue willa”. This came from Community Cash ( and old grocery chain here is SC) with Green Stamps. Remember Green Stamps? I actually remember her collecting them and going to trade them in on pieces of this stuff. I love every piece of it because she was so proud of it. She grew up in the depression, and this was really the first time she “bought” something nice for herself. Every time I look at it, it reminds me how selfless she was, and makes me want to give just a little bit more to someone.
I can’t think of one curtain thing at the moment that was a big childhood memory attchment. Though my brother James and I are both big on tradition. For a while my family would have both ham and turkey for Thanksgiving and then my mom and dad betrayed us and went to just turkey! Or on Christmas my mom and dad desided not to spend money on a Christmas Tree. (in my family we don’t believe in fake so they HAD to be real) I guess my parents couldn’t afford it, but I think they didn’t really wanna fool with it either. So I’ve had a couple of Christmas’ without a tree! :(…So those would have to be my best memories are the ones that had a tradition with them!
I just got the green and red pyrex bowls to complete the set that reminded me of my childhood home. Oh, how many good meals those bowls have seen! They bring back so many memories!
Lord, all the things I associate with my childhood home.
First, there’s mama’s Flour barrel and bread bowl for making up hand-made biscuits……..not cut out biscuits like my dad’s mom used to make- but REAL hand-made biscuits like Moms mom used to make. And I make’em just like she did. And yes- I said mama’s flour barrel….a big ole HUGE aluminum canister that will hold a 20 lb bag of flour….I had two brothers and two sisters growing up and nothing got cooked in small batches!!!
Another thing was Dad’s Victrola, and the big ole cedar chest that all us girls used as our hope chest and then was passed on to the next girl in line in the family.
And mama has a small black or navy blue(we could never agree on exactly what color it was) steamer trunk that mama has always kept our coming home outfits and baby blankets and trinkets and things like that in.
And Mama’s stuffed Barracuda from her and dad’s fist trip deep sea fishing!!!
Lord, I could go on and ON with the memories STILL in my parents home.
I had to laugh about the plant names Glenda. That’s Mama’s name.
I guess the things that say home the most to me are my granddaddy’s empty car shaped cologne bottle. When I was little I thought they were the neatest things ever. That and this picture Mama has I think of the White House I think. Daddy didn’t let her hang up many pictures when we moved from CA so it’s packed up. But if we move I will find a spot for it.
Out of curiosity how close are you to the Madison Square Mall? Eventually I am going to make my way back up to the Huntsville area and that is one of the places I know where it’s at. Along with the Von Braun Center and Denny’s. See I know all the important places.
If you ever get to Madison Square give me a holler. I can be there in about five minutes 🙂
I guess my greatest keepsake is my grandmothers beige coin purse. Every time I stayed overnight with her.. she would get that coin purse out and give me change to go to the corner store and buy some Wax coke bottles filled with Kool-Aid or Candy Cigarettes.
During the summer we would watch her soap operas. I could tell you everything happening on The Guiding Light or As The World Turns when I was 6 or 7 years old. The Soaps were a bit more innocent back in the late 60’s or early 70’s.. we would miss them during school days but when summer vacation started we could catch up real quick. I’m reminded me of the first snow of the season when we went out and scraped the snow off of her 1962 Oldsmobile Cutlass. She and I mixed the snow with a little vanilla, milk and sugar and I had my first taste of Snow Ice Cream.
I have that coin purse in a drawer. It’s just a symbol of course. It can’t love me. It can’t hold me and stroke my hair when I’m sick or upset… but it sure can remind me of the times she did.
I have really enjoyed reading all about your memories and the things that we keep close to trigger those memories. I also remember watching all the soaps with my grandmother. I remember Jesse on General Hospital and singing into the box fan that was wedged into the open window. I guess I must have done the singing while Grandmother watched her soaps because I remember them together. I know she must have really enjoyed my performances! While I may not write much I do read your comments and enjoy them every chance I get. I am very proud of Christy’s accomplishments and hope that you continue to enjoy the stories and try the wonderful dishes. Have a great day! Talk to again soon. Janice-Better known as Christy’s Mama
Wow! This came from my own memory. We must be about the same age. Loved going to my grandmothers. We watched The Guiding Light and the Secret Storm, and to my great grandmothers during the summer. My mother’s grandmother was in the country so we had no television but we could always go next door to my aunt’s and she had all the things we needed from her little store. All I had to do was ask Grandmother (yes, I call her that. She as my only grandmother on that side) if we could make fried chocolate pies and she never said no. What memories! Oh, and she taught me how to make an apron on her peddle sewing machine and cross stitch in the checks on the fabric. Guess that was the first of cross-stitch. Miss you Grandmothers and still love you!