I tried a new recipe for a vanilla cake, it tastes great but its slightly dense for my liking. How can I make it lighter?

There is also buttermilk in the batter, could that be making it dense?

i rarely troubleshoot a recipe in order to maintain the flavor -- if a recipe doesn't turn out i try a different one -- it's much easier to adjust the flavor of a good cake recipe than adjust the entire resulting cake especially when going for the elusive vanilla cake -- so i'll pm you a couple that you can try -- or i'll post them here...

hopefully you got mail -- maybe try one of those if you want -- best to you-- coming up with a good vanilla cake is key -- you'll get there!