The Best No-Mixer Cake Recipes

I don’t know if you realize it, but there are tons of cakes and various sweet bakes you can make completely without a mixer, and even without any heavy beating or whisking!

We use a mixer for many cakes—for example, all creamed cakes, where we beat ingredients until light and fluffy. A mixer is also essential for making various sponge cakes and Genoise.

Theoretically, you can prepare all shortcrust pastries without a mixer—although I like to use a food processor for this. Should I count that as a mixer or not?

For me, the phrase “cakes without a mixer” means cakes made without any electric gadgets. Ideally, you should only need a spoon or a fork.

Shortcrust Pastry Without a Mixer

You need to knead shortcrust pastry, and it’s best to do it quickly so the dough doesn’t get too warm. That’s why it’s worth chopping the ingredients with a knife first to create a crumble, and then quickly kneading it together. Instead of chopping with a knife, I simply pulse the ingredients briefly in a food processor.

Quick Cakes Without a Mixer

What I truly love are quick, hassle-free, no-mixer cake recipes where I just dump the dry and wet ingredients into a bowl and mix quickly with a spoon. You can prepare most brownies or muffins this way.

Many American-style recipes are prepared in this manner—for example, various zucchini breads/cakes, carrot cakes, and different sweet “bready” items.

How to Make a Cake Without a Mixer?

It’s actually very simple!

Just grab one or two bowls and a spoon.

For cakes that don’t require mixing, you usually combine the dry ingredients in one bowl—like flour, baking powder, spices, and sugar—and the wet ingredients in the other—like eggs, oil, buttermilk, or milk. You mix the wet ingredients with a spoon, then add them to the dry ingredients and mix briefly. Cakes prepared this way are usually thicker and less runny. Once baked, they are denser but also wonderfully moist.

You can make this kind of quick, no-mix cake literally anywhere—I often make them on vacation because they are so simple and fast!

Check out my recipes for no-mixer cakes, as well as various cupcakes and muffins, and be sure to bake something delicious today!

Here are my recipes for quick, no-mix cakes: