Easy Vanilla Sheet Cake with Homemade Buttercream Frosting (2024)

This vanilla tray bake is super easy-to-make, moist, and fluffy, and is topped with creamy vanilla buttercream frosting! Decorate it with sprinkles for a perfect finishing touch! You can bake this delicious and tender cake for a birthday cake, a family dessert, or anytime you need a classic vanilla cake that can feed a crowd!

Vanilla Tray Bake Recipe

This delicious vanilla traybake is an easy-to-make dessert for any occasion! It's made using a simple one-bowl method, baked in a single layer in your 9x13 baking pan, and makes enough to serve a crowd!

Top your vanilla cake with some creamy vanilla buttercream frosting and sprinkles, and your cake is ready for a birthday party and feeding a group of kids! The directions in the recipe card below include both the sheet cake and frosting for a great crowd-pleasing dessert that can even be made on short notice!

This super moist and soft classic white cake is full of vanilla flavor and the frosting can be colored to suit your needs. Sprinkles are completely optional, but they add such a fun touch to pretty much any cake that I just love using them!

🤔 What Is A Tray Bake

A traybake is a variety of desserts, typically made in quarter-sheet cake size that a standard 9x13 baking dish will yield. Your traybake can be brownies, blondies, pie bars, cookie bars, or single-layer cakes including frosting or icing. Simple desserts that can be cut into smaller servings to accommodate a large crowd if needed!

🥘 Vanilla Tray Bake Ingredients

If you enjoy baking, you probably have most of these ingredients at home in your pantry! If not, they are all easy to find at any standard grocery store.

Vanilla Tray Bake

• Cake Flour - 2¼ cups of cake flour. Make sure to measure it out using a spoon to scoop it into your measuring cup and then level it off.
• Sugar - 1¾ cups of white granulated sugar.
• Baking Powder - 3 teaspoons of baking powder.
• Salt - ½ teaspoon of salt to balance out all of the sweetness and emphasize the flavors.
• Butter - 1 cup of butter, cubed, and at room temperature.
• Eggs - 3 large room-temperature eggs.
• Vanilla Extract - 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract. For this recipe, I'm using Wilton clear vanilla extract.
• Milk - 1 cup of milk that is room temperature. Divide this into two equal half-cup portions.

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

• Butter - 1 cup of butter that is softened at room temperature. Using room-temperature butter is incredibly important for ensuring it whips up nice and smooth!
• Confectioners Sugar - 4-5 cups of powdered sugar. Begin with 4 cups and then add more as needed. (start with 4 cups, add more as needed)
• Heavy Cream - ¼ cup of heavy cream, half & half, or whole milk at room temperature.
• Vanilla Extract - 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract. For white frosting, use a clear extract.
• Salt - Add salt to taste.
• Gel Food Coloring (if desired)
• Sprinkles (if desired)

*Be sure to see the free printable recipe card below for ingredients, exact amounts & instructions with tips!*

🔪 How To Make A Vanilla Tray Bake

This incredibly tender buttery vanilla cake is made using a reverse creaming method. It's an easy method but has some pointers that should be noted carefully before beginning your cake. To get started, you'll need a stand mixer (or hand mixer), a 9x13 baking dish, and a wire cooling rack!

When finished, you will have one 9x13 cake that can be cut into 24 squares.

Prepare the Cake

1. Bring ingredients to room temperature. Prior to starting your cake, set out your two portions of milk and cube the butter for the cake while it's cold. Allow the milk and butter for the cake to warm to room temperature, as well as the cream and butter for the frosting.
2. Preheat. Preheat your oven to 350ºF (175ºC) and grease and flour your baking pan, or use non-stick baking spray. My preferred method is to line my pan lengthwise with parchment paper, then grease the paper as well. This enables super easy removal of the cake without flipping the cake out and risking it breaking.
3. Combine dry ingredients. Sift the dry ingredients including the cake flour or the substitute in the recipe notes, sugar, baking powder, and salt into a large mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer. Whisk the sifted ingredients together, then cut the cubed butter into the flour mixture.
4. Finish the batter. Add the eggs and butter and mix until the dry ingredients are incorporated. Then add the first portion of milk and mix until smooth. Repeat with the second portion of milk until you have a smooth batter.
5. Bake. Transfer the vanilla traybake batter to your prepared baking dish and bake at 350ºF (175ºC) for 25 - 30 minutes.
6. Cool. Remove the baked cake and allow it to cool in the pan on a wire cooling rack.

Make the Buttercream Frosting

1. Beat. Mix frosting using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment or a hand mixer with the whisk attachment. Beat the butter on medium speed until light and airy. Add the confectioner's sugar, cream, and vanilla extract and mix until smooth, about 2 minutes on medium-high speed.
2. Adjust. Adjust the frosting consistency as needed, depending on whether it will be spread or piped. Taste and adjust the salt, add a pinch to offset the frosting sweetness.
3. Frost the cake. Spread onto the single-layer cake using an offset spatula or piping nozzle. Decorate with sprinkles if desired.

This cake is delicious exactly how it is! However, you can always mix it up by using a different flavor of frosting like chocolate, peanut butter, or cream cheese!

💭 Tips & Notes

• If you don't have cake flour, you can measure out 1 cup of all-purpose flour and either 1) remove 2 tablespoons of the flour or 2) remove 2 tablespoons of the all-purpose flour and add 2 tablespoons of cornstarch(or arrowroot powder). Sift to combine the cornstarch and flour.
• Take a look at my guide to frosting cakes for an in-depth walkthrough of how to perfectly frost any cake!
• If you are going to spread your frosting with a knife, the consistency can be slightly thinner. However, if you are piping decorations onto your cake, you'll need the consistency to be thicker in order to hold the shape.

🥡 Storing

Store your frosted vanilla traybake with a fitted lid for your baking dish (if it has one) or cover tightly with plastic cling film wrap. Keep your cake stored in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

😋 More Easy 9 x 13 Desserts

• Chocolate Pecan Pie Bars - These bars are packed with rich chocolate and crunchy pecans for a delicious dessert!
• Old Fashioned Irish Oatmeal Cake - Oatmeal cake is topped with homemade caramel pecan frosting!
• Preacher Cake - This Southern cake has a ton of different tasty mix-ins for a completely customizable dessert!
• Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting - Banana cake tastes just like banana bread but in tasty cake form!
• Maraschino Cherry Coffee Cake - Cherries, cinnamon sugar, and an irresistible streusel topping are the star of this cake!
• Old Fashioned Raisin Cake - This classic dessert is packed with warm spices and boiled raisins before being topped with a brown sugar frosting!

📖 Recipe Card

More Cake Recipes