Chocolate Layer Cake

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Soft, moist, and smooth chocolate layer cake with the richest chocolate flavor you’ll ever taste. Super easy and only one bowl needed! Pair with my favorite chocolate buttercream, go-to vanilla buttercream, or something else to fit your liking.

That no fail, one bowl, throw it together, doesn’t-need-to-have-room-temperature-ingredients recipe that you can rely on when you need a cake that will make it look and taste like you broke out your most professional skills to produce a cake that makes folks’ eyes roll back into their heads with an audible “mmmm.” You know the type.

Personally, I’ve had a lot of cake fails in my life. Owning my own cake baking/decorating business for three years taught me countless lessons I didn’t ask for about cake baking.

My biggest lesson? Cakes are crazy finicky.

Work your batter too hard? Tough and dry crumb.

Not the exactly right amount of leavener? Your cake will crash into a flat mess.

Too much leavener? Your cake will spill out over the top of your cake pan and get all over the inside of your oven and smell horrible and be terribly difficult to clean up and you will probably cry.

Not that that’s ever happened to me… I heard that from a friend once…

And here’s the best part: this rich, decadent, ridiculously moist, velvety chocolate cake goes perfectly with vanilla buttercream, chocolate fudge frosting, chocolate buttercream, strawberry buttercream, cookie dough frosting, cream cheese frosting, Swiss meringue buttercream, chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream…

Ooof. We’re getting ahead of ourselves. You have plenty of time to pick your frosting. Let’s get to cake-baking first.

Here’s what you’ll need:

GRANULATED SUGAR: no brown sugar in this recipe! We usually use brown sugar when we’re looking to add deep molasses flavor and moisture, but this cake is perfectly moist and flavorful without it.

ALL-PURPOSE FLOUR: no cake flour or cornstarch here. This cake is nice and soft without any change in the flour.

BAKING SODA & POWDER: we’ll utilize both of these leaveners to bring lift to this cake. Pay careful attention to what we’re doing with the liquid in this recipe in order for the baking soda and powder to work properly in this cake.

UNSWEETENED COCOA POWDER: while you can use dark cocoa powder, I do not recommend using Dutch processed cocoa powder. If you prefer that deeper, darker chocolate flavor, I urge you to make my dark chocolate cake.

EGGS: this is the glue for your cake. If you want to make this cake vegan, you can use an egg substitute alongside non-dairy milk (next ingredient).

BUTTERMILK: I have used all kinds of milk for this recipe, and I find the best texture with buttermilk. If you don’t have this ingredient on hand, you can make your own. You can also use anywhere from skim to whole cow milk or non-dairy milk with little change to the final texture and flavor.

VEGETABLE OIL: no butter at all in this recipe! We don’t need a buttery flavor since we’re getting all of the flavor from chocolate. You can use avocado oil or any other plant-based oil you prefer. Just know that if you use olive oil or coconut oil, you may be able to detect a touch of those flavors, so use them at your own risk.

VANILLA EXTRACT & SALT: for flavor! Do not skip either of these ingredients.

COFFEE: no, your cake will not taste like coffee. Yes, you can use decaf. Yes, you can use another ingredient like water. You will still need to make sure it’s boiling.

Always the buttermilk.

I have used anywhere from skim to whole milk instead of buttermilk for this recipe, and the buttermilk reigns supreme. Trust me… I’ve made this more times than you would believe. The milk is at your discretion, but you’ve been warned!

If you don’t have buttermilk, make your own! See my tutorial on homemade buttermilk here or linked below in the recipe.

The bitterness of the coffee just brings out the cocoa taste and takes the flavor of this cake to a whole new level. The only thing you must make sure you do is bring the coffee to a boil in the microwave before you add it to the rest of the batter.

I’ve tried this recipe with simply hot coffee and even cold water… Just… Don’t do it. Warning #2.

The beautiful thing about this classic chocolate cake recipe is that it goes so nicely with a whole slew of frostings. In the below recipe, you’ll find instructions for my go-to chocolate buttercream frosting as well as my vanilla buttercream frosting.

Both of these recipes are my basic go-to buttercream recipes. I’ve made this homemade chocolate cake recipe more times than I can count, and I’ve always paired it with one of these frostings.

Both my the chocolate and vanilla buttercream recipes that I’ve included here are very forgiving, in that if they’re too thin for you, add more powdered sugar or too stiff, add more liquid.

Pair this cake with any frosting you like. Here are all of my American buttercream recipes, and this cake goes magically with Swiss meringue buttercream as well as chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream.

This cake can be made into a 6″ cake for a smaller serving or a smash cake. See my post about 6″ cakes for how to make that happen.

Consider using your favorite candy all chopped up. Or putting chocolate chips all over the outside!

You can also add anything to the inside layer of frosting to jazz up the middle. Ohh, the possibilities! You could make so many combinations with toppings and add-ins. Go ahead… I won’t judge you if you make 10 cakes this weekend. I really won’t…

…just invite me over to help you eat them. I’ll bring the wine milk.