The biggest difference between white cake, vanilla cake, and yellow cake comes down to the types of eggs used in comparison to either butter or oil. White cake uses only egg whites and usually a combination of butter and oil to help reduce the amount of yellow in the cake. Using all egg whites keeps the crumb of the cake really light. Vanilla cake usually uses either a combination of egg whites and whole eggs and either a combination of butter or oil or one or the other. The texture of the vanilla cake is slightly denser and moister than white cake. Yellow cake, on the other hand, uses whole eggs and usually oil over butter. This makes the cake brighter yellow in color, and the cake is slightly denser.