Sour Cream Cake – Core Recipe

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A fluffy, buttery, classic sponge cake which lends itself to a range of different recipes. All mixed in one bowl in less than a minute, this recipe can be used for loaf cakes, slices, sandwich cakes and also streusel cakes, to name just a few. I call it ‘Sour Cream Cake’ to differentiate from my other core recipe cakes and also because it has a generous quantity of sour cream (or yoghurt) in the cake batter. This guarantees a moist and soft crumb each and every bake.

Recipes on this site using this cake recipe as a base:

• Lamingtons
• Lemon and Rosemary Drizzle Cake
• Welsh Shearing Cake (or Cacen Gneifo) with Caraway Seeds
• Lemon Drizzle Cake
• Pineapple Upside Down Cake
• Biscoff Slice with Brown Butter, Cream Cheese, Biscoff Frosting
• Lemon Drizzle Slice with a Crunchy Sugary Top
• Lemon and Dubonnet Drizzle Cake
• Chocolate Fudge Cake
• Coffee Cake Slice with Coffee Buttercream and Chocolate Curls
• Coffee Drizzle Slice with Baileys Irish Cream
• Cinnamon Swirl Vanilla Slice
• Maple Roast Apricot and Almond Streusel Cake
• Pink Grapefruit Drizzle Cake
• Blueberry Streusel Cake (or Blueberry Buckle)
• Mocha Drizzle Cake
• Chocolate Orange Drizzle
• Citronmåne – Lemon Moon Cake, or Lemon Marzipan Cake

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How to make Sour Cream Cake – Core Recipe

Please see the printable Recipe Card below for the exact, yet condensed, quantities and instructions.

Collect all your ingredients together:

• room temperature unsalted butter. It needs to be soft enough to beat. If it is a little hard, beat it with a whisk before adding anything else.
• caster sugar. You could also use granulated sugar but caster sugar is generally preferred for baking. The smaller crystals dissolve better, giving a smoother batter and more consistent results after baking.
• eggs. I use medium sized eggs, roughly 50 – 55g.
• plain/all-purpose flour
• cornflour. This helps to ensure you have a really soft sponge.
• baking powder. Do make sure that your baking powder and bicarbonate of soda are in date. If they are out of date, they may lose their effectiveness.
• bicarbonate of/baking soda. As above.
• fine salt. Ideally a fine sea salt.
• vanilla extract or paste. It is always better to use extract rather than essence. Extracts are derived from the natural product, whereas essence may be derived from a synthetic product or a mixture of the two.
• sour cream, or you can use Greek/natural yoghurt. I prefer to use full fat products but fat reduced/free will also work. Ensure that whatever you use, hasn’t had any sugar added to it.

Now make this wonderful cake:

1. It is important that the butter is at room temperature and soft enough to beat. If it is a little hard, beat it with a whisk before adding the other ingredients. If it is already quite soft, you do not need to do this.
2. Measure all the remaining ingredients into the mixing bowl with the butter. I place my mixing bowl on top my scales and weigh everything in directly.
3. Use an electric whisk to beat until combined. This should take less than a minute. All done.
4. Tip into your lined baking tin and level the surface.
5. Bake in a preheated oven until cooked.
   • 20cm/8in square tin – around 40 minutes
   • 900g/2lb loaf tin – around 35 – 45 minutes
   • deep 20cm/8in round tin – 35 – 45 minutes
   • 2 x 18cm/7in round tins – 20 – 30 minutes
6. It is cooked when:
   • the centre feels springy when lightly touched with your finger and no imprint remains
   • a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean
   • the cake is beginning to come away from the sides of the tin/dish.
7. Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack.

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Made this recipe?

If you make this recipe, do please tag me on instagram @daffodil_kitchen. You could also leave a comment in the box directly below the recipe.