This chocolate birthday cake is simple to make, tastes delicious and is perfect for decorating for a special celebration.
I hate getting questions that I can’t give a helpful answer to, so over the past few weeks I’ve been a busy bee trying to perfect my chocolate cake recipe. Now this couldn’t be just any old chocolate cake, it had to be perfect for a birthday which meant it…
I get a lot of comments on my all-in-one vanilla sponge birthday cake and the ones that always makes me smile the most are when people say that they never bake and the simplicity of the recipe has given them the confidence to do more in future. I wanted this chocolate cake to be that simple to make… a cake even the novice-est of cooks can make.
This cake is so simple… chuck it all in and mix it up. The only piece of culinary skill you need is a bit of grating!
2) Must be suitable for decorating
When I make birthday cakes for my boys I love to go to town on the decoration (you can see some on my cakes in my cake gallery). In order for the cake to work as a decorated cake it can’t dome too much on top or sink in the middle and it must be sturdy enough to be carved into various shapes for decorating without crumbling.
3) Be chocolatey
This is actually the big reason I’ve not been able to recommend chocolate cake recipes until now. All the cakes I’d made in the past with the right texture (see point 2) used just cocoa powder and they simply weren’t chocolatey enough. To give this cake some extra chocolate-iness it includes lots of actual chocolate grated into the cake mix alongside the cocoa powder.
Photographing this cake caused a lot of confusion in my house as I decided it needed to be decorated just like a birthday cake with lots of colourful fondant. Josh (who’s 3) kept asking whose birthday it was and then started getting all excited about Father Christmas coming (because apparently, he delivers presents for birthdays too). I probably didn’t help matters by deciding to light the candles – a completely unnecessary step as I really only wanted to photograph the inside of the cake after they’d been blown out – we had fun doing it together though 🙂
Chocolate Birthday Cake
INGREDIENTS
- 200 g self-raising flour
- 40 g cocoa powder
- 230 g caster sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 230 g soft margarine - you can also use softened unsalted butter too
- ¼ tsp vanilla extract
- 100 g milk chocolate - choose something from the baking aisle in the supermarket as it will cope well with the heat in the oven without going grainy.
- 2 tsp milk
INSTRUCTIONS
- Pre-heat your oven to 160ºC/140ºC fan.
- Line your tins (2x 20cm sandwich tins) with liners or greaseproof paper.
- Grate the milk chocolate (100g).
- Put all of the ingredients into a large bowl (200g self-raising flour, 40g cocoa powder, 230g caster sugar, 4 large eggs, 230g soft margarine, ¼ tsp vanilla extract, 2 tsp milk and the grated chocolate) mix on a low speed until fully combined.
- Divide the mixture evenly between the two tins and spread it out so it’s pretty even (it doesn’t have to be perfect as it’ll even out in the oven, but roughly flat is good).
- Put the tins in the oven and cook for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes put a skewer in the middle and check if it comes out clean. If it does it’s done, if not pop it back in for a couple more minutes and check again.
- Once cooked, remove the cakes from the oven and leave them to cool in the tins for 10 minutes.
- After 10 minutes, remove the cakes from their tins and pop them onto a wire rack to cool completely before decorating.
NOTES
NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION
Any nutritional information provided is the estimated nutritional information per serving. Please refer to my guide to Charlotte’s Lively Kitchen nutritional information if you would like to learn more about how this is calculated.
Free From/Suitable For…
- Suitable for Vegetarians
- Nut-Free
The ingredients for this recipe are easily available free from all these allergens. However, please ensure you double-check allergen information for all ingredients.
Sapphire Bolt says
This cake is amazing and simple to make! Thank you very much for the recipe!
Could this cake and the vanilla birthday cake be made ahead and frozen?
Charlotte Oates says
Yes, both the chocolate and vanilla sponges can be made ahead and frozen. Wrap them in clingfilm or store them in an airtight container to protect them and defrost them thoroughly before decorating.
Jade says
If I want to make this a day before a birthday party. How would I store it? Thanks!
Charlotte Oates says
Just in an airtight container in fine, unless it’s covered in fondant in which case the fondant will protect it so you’ll just need to lovely cover it to protect it from dust. If your house isn’t too warm then it’ll be fine stored out of the fridge, just keep it away from the radiators.
Chloe says
Hi, is there any reason you don’t use melted chocolate for the cake mix? I find grating near impossible, not to mention time consuming. Just wondered if there was an easier way…
Charlotte Oates says
I find it tastes ever so slightly different with grated rather than melted chocolate (when it’s grated you get little bursts of chocolate whereas the chocolate flavour is more even when it’s melted). However, the cake will bake well either way.
Jayne says
My whole family love this cake, particularly the grandchildren. Their faces light up when they see it.
Jen says
Thank you for this recipe! I’ve just made this for my twins birthday cake and it was indeed easy and chocolately, I doubled the quantities and was a bit nervous that I had made too much but it was perfect for 2 cakes. I was unsure of the baking time as I thought 30mins would not be any where near long enough but it was perfect and the cakes slid so easily out of the tins. They did not dome or sink at all. I can’t wait for them to cool and I get to decorate them!
Will definitely be using this recipe again!
Kathrine Inkley says
Hello there,
Can you change the chocolate for white chocolate at all?
Charlotte Oates says
I haven’t tried it so I’m not 100% sure how it would turn out. If you wanted to try it the replace the cocoa powder with additional self-raising flour.
Chloe says
Thank you for this! I did a 6 inch test bake today and other than over baking slightly it came out great. How much do you expect this to rise?
The converter is so helpful, thank you!
Charlotte Oates says
The cakes are usually about 3cm tall per layer. This can vary a bit if you use the calculator for a different size of tin as the ingredients are always rounded to the nearest whole egg so sometime it may be a little taller and sometimes a little shorter.