Easy Vanilla Cake

This recipe happened sort of by accident recently and has become my go-to easy vanilla cake recipe; I’d started making a chocolate cake and once I’d put in the flour and sugar in a bowl together I realised I didn’t have any coco, so I improvised and the result was glorious. It is a toss together, quick and easy, basic, simple but sweet and a perfect texture for cutting into shape for birthday cakes or as a base for colouring for a rainbow or “tie-dye” cake.

It does have a lot of sugar, so this is a treat cake not an every-day cake.

Ingredients

  • 2 cups of self raising flour
  • 1.5 cups of sugar
  • 250mls of milk
  • 125mls of oil (I used a light olive oil)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1-2 teaspoons of vanilla essence (depending on how vanillary you want it)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 deg

2. Sift flour and sugar together into a large mixing bowl.

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3. Add milk, oil, eggs and vanilla.

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4. Mix with a hand held mixer (or in a food processor) for 2-3 minutes until the mixture thickens a little. *

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5. Pour into a prepared baking tin. It makes quite a big batch, you could divide it into two cake tins for layering and this will cook a lot quicker. Bake for 40-50 minutes, until the middle springs back when pressed, or when you poke a knife in it comes out cleanly. Keep an eye on it towards the end of cooking, it does go from perfectly cooked – to over cooked – pretty fast.

6. Remove from tin and allow to cool and ice or decorate as desired.

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(Some crushed up easter eggs sprinkled on top)

*to make an easy rainbow cake divide mixture into 6 bowls, add food colouring, and pour colours into the tin one by one starting with red through to purple (I confused myself and made my rainbow upside down – oops)

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Also the cake does rise up a fair bit, but if you want a flat surface it’s beautiful to cut, even while still hot.

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