Mini Vanilla Cake (Small Batch Bakes)

A cute little 4″ mini vanilla cake – the perfect small batch cake, bento box size cake, or for a mini celebration.  Made with an equal-weight sponge base and filled with sweet jam and silky vanilla buttercream, it takes just 30 minutes to prep and bakes to perfection in 35 to 45 minutes. Yielding a gorgeous 4-layer, 4-inch cake that serves 4 to 6 slices.

Small batch baking

A couple years ago I started posting some small batch baking recipes, as most of my recipes are designed to serve a family, crowd, or even be put in the freezer if you have any spare portions. I realise this isn’t realistic for everyone, so the small batch bakes series was born.

These small batch bakes recipes are all about the intention to bake something delicious, and it serves the correct amount of people. They typically serve 2-6 people, depending on how they are portioned or served, and it’s a series for those of you who want to bake specifically for something, for those of you who don’t want to put some in the freeze when you’ve fixed your craving, or you simply don’t want to use as many ingredients on one bake.

My small batch bakes

Take a small batch NYC chocolate chip cookies, for example. These cookies still deliver everything you expect from the classic bakery favorite: thick centers, crisp edges, and generous pockets of chocolate. But by scaling the recipe down, to serve just two, it’s ideal for a casual weekend dessert, a small gathering, or simply treating yourself without having loads left over.

The same philosophy applies to my chocolate cake for two recipes. Rather than pulling out multiple pans or dealing with layers of leftovers, a small cake offers all the richness and comfort of a traditional chocolate cake, perfect for date nights, or because you really do just have that choccy cake craving like I often do.

A mini cake?

Last year I posted a video celebrating my blog’s 11th birthday, and I decided to make a mini cake as they are adorable to look at, and I wanted to just bake a small cake as I really was in the midst of so much recipe testing, I didn’t need a huge cake as well.

Using some very cute 4” cake tins, I made a simple yet delicious mini cake with a buttercream centre, outside and sprinkles and you guys went mad for it. Other than that, I get requests for a 4” cake recipe almost daily as people often use it for bento box style cakes, so this is the perfect bake for that.

Sponge recipe

When it comes to a sponge of this size, it’s harder to make a simple cake sponge, but I made it as easy as possible. I usually always use medium eggs when I am baking, for consistency and for ease as well. When baking simple sponges, it’s usually based on ratios, of equal parts of butter, sugar, flour and eggs. 

The best way to start a sponge that is so small, is to weigh the eggs in their shells, and then match the weight of the flour, sugar and butter to that weight. So when I filmed this recipe, my two medium eggs were 118g, so I then used 118g of unsalted butter (or baking spread), 118g of self raising flour, and 118g of caster sugar. You then add in the flavour (on this occasion, vanilla). 

If you have larger eggs, that’s okay, you just need to match to that weight, and then bake for a little longer (and your sponges will be slightly taller). This recipe is designed to make a 4 layer, 4″ cake – so I bake into two 4″ cake tins. I baked at a lower temperature so that the cakes had a flatter top, and were easier to use later on. 

At 140ºc in a fan oven, it takes about 35-45 minutes to bake. It’s worth checking the cake from about 30 minutes, but expect it to take between 35-45 minutes. I check it with a skewer, and check to see if it’s making a bubbling/crackling sound (if it’s making a sound, it needs a little longer), and then I leave the cakes to cool fully in the tin. 

Decoration

When it comes to decorating such a small cake, it’s easier and also a little harder at the same time. It’s easier, because there is less to do in theory as it’s so much smaller, but also, mini can mean fiddly. I went for a simple vanilla buttercream as you don’t need much at all, and it worked wonders. 

Beating the room temperature unsalted butter on its own, mixing in icing sugar and some vanilla bean extract, it is thick and smooth, ideal for a drip cake. If you find the buttercream is slightly too thick, you can add 1tbsp of boiling water, mixing it in really well to soften, but you don’t want to add too much.

I use a large piping bag to pipe borders around each layer of sponge, then used a little homemade jam in the middle for flavour. I then used the same buttercream in the piping bag to pipe some around the edges of the cake. I then used a metal cake scraper to smooth the edges to create a crumb coat, and chilled it int he fridge for 30 minutes.

Piping more buttercream on top of the crumb coat, I smoothed around the edges again to create the look you can see in the images, and used the last of the buttercream to pipe swirls on top with a 2d closed star piping tip, perfect for decoration and a base for some sprinkles.  

FAQs

Storage and freezing

While this cute 4-inch mini vanilla cake tastes best on the day it is decorated, the generous buttercream shell locks in moisture, keeping the cake soft and fresh at room temperature for 3 to 4 days inside a cake dome or airtight container. If you want to prepare the sponges in advance, the plain un-iced cake layers are custom-built for long-term freezing; simply wrap the completely cooled sponges individually in clingfilm and freeze for up to 4 months.

Related recipes

My small batch triple chocolate brownies are ideal for baking on a smaller scale. These serve 4-6 slices, that are fudgey, moreish and still just as good as the full-size batch version that has been on my blog for many years.