Some time back I posted a homemade yellow cake mix. I promised I’d post a white cake mix (and someone reminded me in a comment just the other day), so here it is! Any cake is better from scratch, and if you like to keep homemade mixes on-hand to make life easier on busy days, this makes a perfect cake every time without having to resort to a box from the store–and fast.

Box mixes include a lot of powdered stuff. That’s how you can just add water, oil, and a couple eggs and throw it in the oven. I’m going to give you two versions so you can choose whether or not you want to use powdered milk. If you have milk in the fridge, it’s really not that much trouble to measure out the milk than it is to measure water, but sometimes you might be out of milk, so a powdered milk version can save the day. And powdered milk, of course, is what is in the boxes, so you’re still better off without the additional preservatives and artificial colorings! Also remember that if you’re using your homemade white cake mix in a recipe calling for a white cake mix, the recipe will assume you’re using a store-bought mix that includes powdered milk.

How to make Homemade White Cake Mix:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour OR 2 3/4 cups cake flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup non-fat dried milk or powdered buttermilk
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Combine the ingredients. Store in a sealed, labeled container or baggie with the directions to make the cake. (This mix will fit in a quart-size baggie, just barely.) If you want to double, triple, or more the mix to make in bulk and keep it all in one big container, stir the mix well and measure out 5 cups of mix each time you make a cake (or a bit more if you used cake flour).

To replace in recipes calling for a store-bought white cake mix:
Use in any recipe calling for a white cake mix as a base (add 1 teaspoon vanilla to the recipe along with the cake mix as the recipe will assume powdered vanilla flavoring was included in the store-bought mix).

Or to make a basic white cake using your homemade mix, use the following instructions.

Cake mix directions:

1 recipe Homemade White Cake Mix
1 1/4 cups water
1/2 cup shortening or lard
4 egg whites
1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine all the ingredients. Beat to mix on low, then beat on high for two minutes. Pour into greased, floured cake pans. Bake at 350-degrees.

8″ or 9″ cake rounds — 20-25 minutes
13 x 9 pan — 35-40 minutes
cupcakes — 12-15 minutes
tube/bundt pan — 45-50 minutes

Don’t overbake! You’ll dry out your cake.

To make this mix without using powdered milk:
Delete the dried milk from the mix ingredients. When preparing the cake, replace the 1 1/4 cups water with 1 1/3 cups milk or buttermilk. I’ve also used coconut milk with this recipe. You can use any kind of milk you want.

Just remember that recipes calling for a store-bought white cake mix are going to assume the mix contains powdered milk. Also remember, if you make the mix in bulk, instead of measuring out 5 cups per cake, you’d measure out 4 1/2 cups (to make up for the 1/2 cup powdered milk that’s not in there).

By the way, you don’t have to waste all those egg yolks! You can freeze eggs yolks, egg whites, and even whole eggs. Next time you’re making a recipe that calls for egg yolks, your white cake leftover yolks will come in handy. See how to freeze eggs.

I made a Lady Baltimore Cake this weekend, using my white cake mix (and coconut milk, not powdered milk), with Seven-Minute Icing.

You can find all of these recipes at Farm Bell Recipes for the handy print pages and to save them to your recipe box:
Homemade White Cake Mix
Lady Baltimore Cake
Seven-Minute Icing

Happy homemade mixing!


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