Even though eating light can often mean eating less or more healthy foods — it can also be nice to cook with less "stuff." We do a great deal of baking and quite often, we just don't feel like pulling out the mixer and washing all the attachments when we're done. Which is why we like this quick, customizable no mixer cake recipe!
This recipe can be made in 1 bowl, without a mixer. It can be poured into 2, 9" rounds, a half sheet pan or even cupcakes. The choice is yours. The whole thing comes together in under 5 minutes, which is typically less time than it takes for your oven to even preheat! You just can't beat it!
This recipe is easily customized and adaptable to your own needs. You can add in an ounce of cocoa powder to make it chocolate (just reduce your flour by the same amount), add in a handful of spices such as cinnamon, cardamom, clove, allspice and ginger to make it aromatic and warm (try to keep all spices under 3tablespoons total) or take your own spin on things!
The No Mixer, One Bowl Cake Recipe
Yields, 2-9" rounds, 24 cupcakes or 2-8" squares
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
1 cup whole milk
1 tablespoon heavy cream, half and half or whole milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4 eggs + 1 egg yolk
1 1/3 cup flour
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar (Extra fine if you have it)
1 3/4 cup confectioners sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line bottom of pan(s) of your choosing with parchment paper. No need to butter the sides, it will allow the cake to climb the edges to yield a more tender crumb.
To start, melt butter in a microwaveable bowl on high, just until melted. Add milk and stir briskly to reduce temperature of mixture. Add in cream, vanilla and stir. Add eggs + yolk and stir quickly until yolks are broken and mixture is smooth.
Over the top of the liquid mixture sift in flour, powdered sugar, salt and baking powder. Add additional granulated sugar and stir to combine. Pour into prepared pans and bake 15-25 minutes. Rounds usually run at 25 minutes, cupcakes at 20 and a half sheet pan for 15. Just watch for the middle to be set and a cake tester to come out clean or with a small crumb.
You can serve with even a small dusting of powdered sugar or that special jam or marmalade hiding in the back of your pantry for a special moment, or add any of your favorite icings to it. We made ours in a half sheet pan and cut out individual sized rounds to layer and serve. Perfect for a winter afternoon snack!
• Related: How To Frost a Layer Cake
(Image: Sarah Rae Trover)
Yuck: A Fourth Grader Reveals What School Lunches Really Look Like
How to Make Fresh Pasta Dough in the Food Processor
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Floral Drink Dispen...
Where to Squeeze a Home Office into a Full House?
Juan's Garage Turned Modern Guest House
This is a great recipe. It's fun to cook sometimes and not be left with the mess of all messes. Thanks!
That's a lotta butta.
Sometimes it's easier to think of it as a tablespoon per slice :)
Damnit. My diet's excuse to my sugar craving has been that baking is too much trouble and I don't wanna clean up!
Thank god I don't have any cream in the house, or my New Year's resolution would be right out the window.
This is kind of like making one-bowl brownies, only without the chocolate. Looks yummy! I think I'll make one with walnuts this weekend and some coffee icing.
I had some extra buttercream to use up, so this quickie recipe looked like a good idea. Just made this using skim milk instead of whole and cream, since I only had that in the fridge. The texture turned out pretty nice, however it is really oily! All the butter soaked through the parchment and cupcake paper..
Combined with the buttercream I had (not too much), it is way too buttery... I have a mild stomachache right now. :(
I'm willing to try this again with less butter.
In the third paragraph it mentions adding "additional granulated sugar" before stirring to combine, yet nowhere in the recipe is granulated sugar mentioned.
Should it be in the recipe somewhere or was it a typo of sorts?
My other one-bowls cakes are either granulated sugar OR powdered, but not both, so I would like to know. Thanks.
I was gearing up to try this recipe, but I'm glad I read the comments first, i.e. the additional granulated sugar.
also question the additional granulated sugar. is that optional like adding cocoa or spices?
So... if my pan of choice is a bundt, should I butter/flour it?
And ditto on the granulated sugar Q.
Ugh, this recipe has a major typo as we are finding out the hard way.
The recipe should ask for TWO and a third of a cup of flour. Like other people I had a bowl of absolute liquid, and a runny, oily mess after 25 minutes in the oven. It was nothing like a cake and it was inedible.
I made it again with the extra flour and it came out fine. I also used 1 cup of ordinary granulated sugar instead of what it asks. I have no idea why it mentions the extra sugar - I didn't bother with it and it didn't need it.
The granulated sugar has been fixed! My sincere apologies for it being omitted previously!
RuuElisa - Since sugar dries up a baking mixture, the addition of the extra flour would have worked out well, but might have given it a more bland taste, I'll have to make it and try it your way and check out the results! BUT... with the addition of the sugar to the recipe, it only needs 1 1/3 cups flour, the sugar does the rest of the work in the recipe!
kushkush - I would actually butter and sugar the pan, flour will be ok, but might make things mushy, a crisp crust would work out nicely on this recipe and sugar would be just the thing for it!
I just made this - first off don't make the mistake I did, which was using a springform pan. It leaked all over the oven. This is a very liquid batter.
Luckily I used the leftover batter in a loaf pan. It stuck a bit to the sides but I was able to pry it out. The results are delicious but very eggy and buttery. I will tinker with this formula, because I like the idea of melting butter rather that waiting for it to soften and then creaming with sugar. However, cleanup was almost the same as with a "regular" cake, because at one point you have to sift dry ingredients together - which means either washing a sifter, or measuring the dry ingredients into a bowl, and passing them through a fine sieve, so then you have an extra bowl and sieve to wash.