While the humble chocolate cake recipe may have changed (a lot) since its first printing in 1847, the love we all have for it has not. In honour of national chocolate cake day, the team and I have pulled together three of our favourite chocolate cake recipes to share with you.
All of these recipes can be tucked away for a special occasion or pulled out as a fun rainy-day activity all year round. That being said, remember, today is the day you get to have your (chocolate) cake and eat it too so make the most of it!
Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Ribbons
This is such an easy chocolate cake to make, super quick and a lot of fun. The chocolate ribbons take a little more time but are really rewarding to make. When we made this cake, and the various photos/videos for it, it was over 30 degrees in our kitchen! This is far from ideal conditions to be working with chocolate. If we managed to make it work, then so can you! Have fun and enjoy the fabulous comments when you are done. It would make an impressive Mother's Day treat or Birthday cake, hopefully, someone will make it for you!
We made this as two separate cakes for the layers, of course, you can make it as one cake and cut it in half; just adjust your cooking times. After I made it, I also thought a layer of raspberry jam as well as the chocolate ganache would be delicious.
Cakes:
100g butter
2 tbsp golden syrup
2 eggs (lightly beaten)
200g sugar
315g flour
2 tsp baking powder
25g Devonport Chocolates Cocoa
2 tsp baking soda
375ml milk
Ganache for filling:
250ml cream
250g Devonport Chocolate Drops
Ganache for top:
250ml cream
250g Devonport Chocolate Drops
Chocolate ribbons:
250g Devonport Chocolate Drops (approximately)
Making the cake:
Pre-prepare your cake tin(s) by lightly greasing or lining it with baking paper. I used two tins that were 20cm tins. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Place the butter and golden syrup in a saucepan and heat gently. Take off the heat and let it cool a little, then stir in the beaten egg. Mix well. Sift in the flour, baking powder, and cocoa and mix. Lastly, add the baking soda to the milk and then add it to your cake mix. Gently stir to combine.
Split evenly into your two cake tins. Bake for approximately 30 minutes, but keep an eye on it. At 30 minutes, mine was starting to get a touch dry. Bake until a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool for 10 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.
Making the ganache:
You make the ganache for the centre and topping exactly the same way, just leave it longer in the fridge, depending on the consistency you would like.
Place cream in a saucepan on low. Bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and add your chocolate drops. Stir and stir and stir; you will see it slowly come together in the middle before spreading out and becoming a lovely smooth consistency. Place in the fridge until it is perfect for using to sandwich your pieces of cake together. It needs to be spreadable but hold its shape. When you make the ganache for the top, you may want to pour it, which means it will need to be pourable but firm enough not completely to run off the cake, or you might choose to whip it up a bit with a beater, pour over and then rough it up a bit for a textured, rustic look. (If I'm honest, I did this to cover up the huge amount of imperfections with my cake!
Making Chocolate Ribbons:
Keep an eye out on our social channels for a video to go with these instructions.
To make these chocolate ribbons, I didn't re-temper my chocolate but used chocolate drops that are already tempered and didn't break that temper. (Devonport Chocolate's ones are pre-tempered). Slice up pieces of baking paper. If you aren't lucky enough to have a composite marble bench top in your kitchen, cover a chopping board in baking paper. Sellotape your strips of baking paper onto your chopping board. (If you have a marble bench top you can sellotape the strips straight onto your benchtop).
Place your chocolate drops in a microwave-proof bowl and place in the microwave on medium power for 30-second bursts. Stir well between each burst. When your chocolate drops are 50% melted, don't microwave anymore, just stir, and stir and stir. This will mean you don't break the temper of the chocolate. Place two cardboard cylinders next to each other on a tray you can place in your fridge (I used two tinfoil rolls and anchored their ends down to a chopping board with sellotape). Pour your chocolate over your baking paper strips and smooth them out. Peel up each strip and place it over your cylinders. Place in the fridge.
Once the chocolate has started to pull away from the paper, you can peel the paper off your ribbons. Assembling the cake (this must be done when the cake is cold): Sandwich your layers together with one lot of ganache. You might choose to add nuts or jam to the middle as well. Whip up the other lot of ganache and pour over the top of the cake. As it sets, create rustic swirls in the ganache with a knife or spoon.
Arrange your chocolate ribbons on top.
Go to Chocolate Cake Recipe
Everyone needs a chocolate cake recipe they can pull out for special occasions that tastes divine but is easy to make. This is a favourite of mine that I break out for any special occasion where I don’t have time to make something fancy! It is so simple to make, and it is a great option to get the kids involved with and make it a family affair. This recipe makes a great base that can be dressed up with a variety of toppings or enjoyed as is.
Ingredients
175g butter, softened
1¾ cups Chelsea white sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
3 eggs
2 cups Edmonds standard-grade flour
2 tsp Edmonds baking powder
1 cup Meadow Fresh milk
Chelsea icing sugar (optional)
Making the cake
Preheat the oven to 180˚C. Grease a 22cm deep round cake tin and line the base with baking paper. In a large bowl, combine the butter and sugar, then cream until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, making sure you beat the mixture well after each addition!
Sift the Devonport Chocolates Cocoa, baking powder and flour together and fold into the creamed batter while adding the milk slowly.
Pour your batter into your pre-prepared cake tin and bake for 45-55 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Make sure you are checking on it while it's baking, so it doesn't dry out or overcook! Leave the cake to cool off in the cake tin for 15 minutes before moving it onto a wire rack to finish cooling.
Once it is completely cool, dust it with icing sugar and decorate it to your heart's content with fruit or more chocolate.
Best Banana Chocolate Cake Recipe
If you are anything like me, you will have a seemingly endless supply of frozen bananas in your freezer that you definitely intend to use at some point. This is the perfect recipe to help you get through those bananas while also being a delicious treat. I love to make this cake on the weekends and freeze it so it can be used for lunches throughout the week if I know I am going to be busy.
Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup Devonport Chocolates Cocoa
1 ½ tsp Baking powder
½ tsp Sea salt
¼ tsp Baking soda
2 tsp Lemon juice
¾ cup Milk
100 g Butter at room temperature
1 ¼ cups Brown sugar
2 large Eggs
2 Bananas, ripe, mashed
½ cup Devonport Chocolate Drops
Icing
2 cups Icing sugar
⅓ cup Devonport Chocolates Cocoa
½ cup softened butter
1 tsp Vanilla extract
1 Tbsp Milk, or add more to achieve desired consistency
Making the cake
Preheat the oven to 170C. Lightly grease a cake tin and line the base and sides with baking paper. I used two tins that were 22cm tins, but any will do.
In a large bowl, sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder, salt and baking soda. In another bowl, stir the lemon juice into the milk.
In a third bowl, combine the butter and sugar, then cream until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, make sure you beat the mixture well after each addition! Add the mashed bananas, then stir in milk and fold in dry ingredients and chocolate buttons.
Pour the cake tin and bake for 1.15 hours or until a skewer comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the tin, so it doesn't crumble when you pull it out.
Making the icing
For the icing, blend icing sugar and cocoa in a food processor until thoroughly combined. Add butter and vanilla and blend again. Depending on what consistency you are after, you may need to add some milk. Personally, I always add a dash to keep the icing smooth.
Hold off on icing the cake until it is completely cool and then decorate with more fresh fruit and/or chocolate drops.