Classic Chocolate Layer Cake
The birthday standard: deep cocoa layers, silky chocolate frosting.
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Digital kitchen scale
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Before You Start
Every baker needs one chocolate cake that always works. This is the hot-coffee cocoa method: the boiling liquid blooms the cocoa into its deepest self and thins the batter to a pourable slick that bakes level. The coffee does not make it taste of coffee, only more of chocolate. One bowl, a whisk, no mixer.
Instructions
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1
Heat the oven to 175°C / 350°F. Grease and line two 20 cm round tins.
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2
Whisk the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt in your biggest bowl.
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3
Whisk in the eggs, buttermilk, oil and vanilla until smooth.
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4
Pour in the hot coffee and whisk. The batter goes thin as cream, which is exactly right.
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5
Divide between the tins and bake 30 to 34 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Cool 15 minutes in the tins (the thin batter makes delicate hot layers), then fully on a rack.
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6
Frosting: beat the butter 3 minutes, add the cocoa, then the powdered sugar and cream in alternating stages, and beat 2 minutes more until silky. Fill, stack and frost the cooled layers in swoops.
💡 Baker's tips
- The thin batter is the recipe working, not failing. Resist adding flour: it bakes into the moistest crumb on the site.
- No coffee in the house? Boiling water works, quieter but still good. Decaf blooms cocoa identically if the caffeine matters.
🔀 Make it your own
- Makes 24 excellent cupcakes, 18 to 20 minutes.
- A raspberry jam layer under the frosting between the cakes, for the black forest adjacent version.
📦 Storing & freezing
Under a dome at room temperature for 3 days, the fridge only in hot weather. Unfrosted layers freeze for 3 months and are easier to frost half-frozen.
❓ Frequently asked
Why put coffee in chocolate cake?
Hot coffee blooms the cocoa, dissolving its flavour compounds so the cake tastes more intensely of chocolate, not of coffee. Boiling water does the blooming with less depth.
Why is my chocolate cake dry?
Usually overmeasured flour or overbaking. Weigh the flour (219 g here), pull the cake at a clean skewer, and remember this batter is meant to pour like cream.
Baking in a different unit? Use the cups ↔ grams converter or the recipe scaler to halve or double this recipe.
