Vanilla Loaf Cake
, Updated Dec 04, 2025
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An easy and foolproof Vanilla Loaf Cake that’s soft, moist and delicious. This simple vanilla sponge uses just six ingredients and can be served plain or topped with vanilla buttercream and sprinkles. The perfect treat with a cup of tea or coffee!
Love Chocolate? Check out my Chocolate Loaf Cake!
Have I mentioned that my husband is not a cake person? It’s true and it’s slightly heartbreaking (to me at least). The only cakes he will happily eat and enjoy are simple, fuss-free, plain cakes.
This vanilla loaf cake is his favourite – such a quick and easy pound cake that you can whip up in five minutes! Did I also mention you only need six ingredients or five if you use self raising flour?
This everyday vanilla cake will delight fans of my School Sprinkle Cake and everyone who adores vanilla. A great recipe for newbie bakers – just take a look at the video to see how easy it is!
Vanilla Pound Cake
Pound cake is one of the oldest and easiest cake recipes to master. So named because the recipe uses a pound each of flour, sugar and eggs, this basic plain sponge can be flavoured with vanilla or other flavours.
My vanilla loaf cake recipe uses the following ingredients – make sure they are all room temperature before mixing together! For best results use digital scales to measure the ingredients. Bake in a 1lb Loaf Tin
- Plain flour (all purpose flour or cake flour). You can also use self-raising flour if you like, cutting the ingredients down to just five!
- Baking powder – make sure it is fresh!
- Caster sugar or granulated sugar
- Softened butter or baking spread such as Stork
- Medium eggs
- Vanilla bean paste or good quality vanilla extract (not essence!)
How to Make This Vanilla Loaf Cake Recipe
- Measure the flour, sugar and baking powder into a mixing bowl and stir to combine. Add the remaining ingredients – butter, eggs and vanilla bean paste and beat on low speed using an electric hand mixer (or a stand mixer).
- Increase the speed once the ingredients have combined, scraping the bottom and sides of your bowl halfway. Easy peasy!!
- Spoon the batter into a lined 450g (1lb) loaf tin (I use loaf tin liners for ease) and level. Bake for 50 minutes (or up to an hour) until the cake is well risen and springy to the touch. A skewer inserted in the centre should come out clean.
- Serve plain, as soon as it has cooled down a little or cool completely and add frosting and loads of sprinkles!
Recipe Tips and FAQs
- Make sure your baking powder or self raising flour are fresh and make sure not to use both in this recipe!
- Grease and line your loaf tin or use a loaf tin liner.
- You can dust the cake with icing sugar, top it with a simple glaze or frost it with vanilla buttercream. It will taste delicious any way you serve it. Make sure the cake has cooled down completely before frosting!
- Store in a cake tin for up to five days or freeze for up to three months (without any frosting).
HAVE YOU MADE MY VANILLA LOAF CAKE RECIPE? Please leave a rating, post a photo on my Facebook page, share it on Instagram, or save it to Pinterest with the tag #supergoldenbakes and make my day!
Vanilla Loaf Cake
Video
Equipment
- Small Loaf Cake Pan
Ingredients
Vanilla Cake
- 200 g ( 1 ¼ cups) plain flour AP flour or Cake Flour
- 200 g (1 cup) sugar caster or granulated
- 1 tsp baking powder see notes
- 200 g ( ¾ cup + 2 tbsp) softened unsalted butter or Stork baking spread
- 4 medium eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
Vanilla Buttercream (optional)
- 80 g (⅓ cup) softened unsalted butter not Stork!
- 260 g (2 cups) icing sugar powdered sugar
- 4 tbsp cream or whole milk more, if needed
- 2 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
- sprinkles to decorate
Instructions
Make the cake
- Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Grease and line a 1lb loaf tin, or use a loaf tin liner.
- Measure the flour, sugar and baking powder in a bowl and stir to combine.200 g ( 1 ¼ cups) plain flour, 200 g (1 cup) sugar , 1 tsp baking powder
- Add the butter, eggs and vanilla bean paste. Beat on low speed using an electric hand mixer (or a stand mixer). Increase the speed once the ingredients have combined, scraping the bottom and sides of your bowl halfway.200 g ( ¾ cup + 2 tbsp) softened unsalted butter, 4 medium eggs, 2 tsp vanilla bean paste
- Spoon the batter into a lined loaf tin (I use loaf tin liners for ease) and level. Bake for 50 minutes (or up to an hour) until the cake is well risen and springy to the touch. A skewer inserted in the centre should come out clean.
Make the Buttercream
- Beat all the ingredients together until you have a smooth and fluffy buttercream that holds peaks. Pipe or spread the frosting over the cake – make sure it has cooled down completely first!260 g (2 cups) icing sugar, 4 tbsp cream or whole milk, 2 tsp vanilla bean paste, sprinkles to decorate, 80 g (⅓ cup) softened unsalted butter
- Add sprinkles or whatever decorations you like and serve!
Notes
- Use room temperature ingredients and ideally measure using scales.
- Make sure your baking powder or self raising flour are fresh and make sure not to use both in this recipe!
- Grease and line your loaf tin or use a loaf tin liner.
- You can dust the cake with icing sugar, top it with a simple glaze or frost it with vanilla buttercream. It will taste delicious any way you serve it. Make sure the cake has cooled down completely before frosting!
- Store in a cake tin for up to five days or freeze for up to three months (without any frosting).
Nutrition
Nutritional information is always approximate, and will depend on quality of ingredients and serving sizes.
As a newby to the page, is 180 degrees for a fan oven or not? thanks
If you are using a fan oven then drop to 160 degrees and adjust baking time if needed
This cake recipe is superb! My nephew always asks me to make vanilla sponge, without buttercream, so I left it out this time. I also added 3 tablespoons of oat milk. I’ve used different vanilla sponge recipes over the years, but this one is the best! My nephew absolutely loved this cake, and it tasted just like the ones my mom used to make. Thank you!
The method seems a bit muddled. The buttercream butter is listed in step 3 of the cake batter. Took my sleep deprived brain a moment to figure it out but it got there.
Hi Jane – the listed ingredients was misplaced – thanks for picking up on that!
Absolutely loved this cake! This is brilliant and I did half the recipe. All I did differently was reduce the sugar by two tablespoons and add a tablespoon of milk.
Thanks for your comment!
I made this cake for my nieces 9th Birthday, as she requested a plain cake. Her words were “this is the best cake ever!”. There was no cake left so I witnessed it being a great hit!
Thank you 🙂
Wonderful to hear and happy birthday to your niece xxx
This is a standard pound cake recipe. If you had actually made it, you would have found that the quantity needs a 2lb tin, it would not fit a 1lb tin. Also the quantity of frosting is enough for three cakes if you are going to end up with the depth of frosting shown in the photo.
Hi Sue – all the recipes on my site are created by me, tested and retested. I suspect it might be you who didn’t make this recipe?
Made this in a 1lb loaf tin. perfect
Made this using a 1lb loaf tin. Perfect. Only difference I used three large eggs as I didn’t have medium
it is apsolutely amazing a really nice hard top crust and a soft and fluffy inside goes extremely well with tea and can use baking soda if you had a table spoon or 2 of natural or greek yogurt. Absolutely amazing.
Made for son’s birthday came out great. A keeper.
So glad it was a hit!