My best Vanilla Cake - stays moist 4 days!

The formula

Every ingredient resolved to grams, expressed against the recipe's own base — next to the median of all 51.

	this recipe	typical
fat	147%	88%
total sugar	333%	181%
egg	23%	54%
leavener	4%	3%
salt	1%	1%
liquid	121%	86%
dairy	121%	84%
flour strength	1.0	1.0

Adapts cleanly: dairy-free, egg-free, gluten-free, nut-free (documented swaps, applied on the dish page)

Ingredients

Weights computed by us.

240 g	2 cups plain / all purpose flour ((cake flour OK too, Note 1))
10 g	2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 g	1/4 tsp cooking salt ((kosher salt))
55 g	4 large eggs ((50 - 55g / 2 oz each), at room temp (Note 3))
300 g	1 1/2 cups caster sugar / superfine sugar ((granulated/regular ok too, Note 2))
115 g	115g / 1/2 cup unsalted butter (, cut into 1.5cm / 1/2” cubes (or so))
244 g	1 cup milk (, full fat (Note 5))
13 g	3 tsp vanilla extract (, the best you can afford (Note 6))
14 g	3 tsp vegetable or canola oil ((Note 7))
225 g	225g / 2 sticks unsalted butter (, softened)
500 g	500g / 1 lb soft icing sugar / powdered sugar (, SIFTED)
13 g	3 tsp vanilla extract
46 g	2 - 4 tbsp milk (, to adjust thickeness, if needed)

Method: 21 steps, published by www.recipetineats.com — open the original ↗ or use bake mode for a follow-along with a screen that stays on.

“I've been faffing about trying to make a Madeira cake, (yep, just like a supermarket Madeira cake which are generally, dense, light, fluffy, soft and moist, all at the same time, and tend to stay that way for a few days). Anyway, a Madeira cake is the only cak” — a cook, 5.0★

“Great recipe! I've used many times with success! But in case anyone else is inclined to try - it does not work to split the batter to bake in multiple stages. I tried to do 4 x 7inch layers and there's about 3cm difference in height between the first and last ” — a cook, 5.0★