Name: Chocolate Birthday Cake
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 45 min
Yield: 12
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

This chocolate birthday cake is simple to make, tastes delicious and is perfect for decorating for a special celebration.

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One question I’ve been asked a lot in the past is whether I can recommend a really good chocolate birthday cake recipe, and I couldn’t… until now.

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…

1) Must be simple to make

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 🙂

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4.78 from 44 votes

Chocolate Birthday Cake

This chocolate birthday cake is simple to make, tastes delicious and is perfect for decorating for a special celebration.

Active Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Total Time 45 minutes

Servings 12

INGREDIENTS

Metric - US Cups/Ounces

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

If you would like to make this cake in a different size then you can use my chocolate cake calculator to find the ingredients you need.

You can find my recipe for the chocolate buttercream to cover the cake here.

If you want to make this cake in one deep tin rather than two sandwich tins then the cooking time will need to be increased to 45-50 minutes.

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION

Any nutritional information shown is the estimated nutritional information per serving. Please refer to my guide to Charlotte’s Lively Kitchen nutritional information if you want 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.

Comments

Amelia says
17 September 2019 at 7:53 am

Used this recipe for a wedding cake and it got soo many compliments! I tried it myself and it’s dreamy! So thank you for sharing this recipe, it’s now become my go to chocolate cake recipe! x
Yvonne says
15 September 2019 at 5:12 pm
Hi, can you tell me why one of my cakes sinks and the other one is fine when they’re both put in the oven at the same time on the same shelf? Cakes are delicious though!
- Charlotte Oates says
  16 September 2019 at 7:07 pm
  How strange! In all the 100s of comments I’ve had about this recipe (or any other recipe), it’s the first time I’ve heard of this happening.
  A few thoughts:
  1) Is the heat even throughout your oven? It might be worth getting an oven thermometer to check in different positions.
  2) Was the mixture split evenly between the two tins? If one was slightly fuller than the oven then it may not have been cooked fully when it was first checked which could cause it to sink.
  3) Did you use identical tins/liners for the two sponges? Different tins can effect how a cake bakes.
Kathleen Murray says
14 September 2019 at 9:02 pm
Hi,
Wondering what depth your 20inch sandwich tins are as I have two but only 3cm depth. They look very narrow. I did see other tins with a bugger depth and thinking I need at least 5 cm. Would that be correct?
Thanks for your help
- Charlotte Oates says
  16 September 2019 at 7:08 pm
  Mine are about 3cm deep.
Louise Heywood says
13 September 2019 at 9:46 am
Hi, I’m going to attempt cooking a 6inch and 9inch cake using this recipe later (thank you for the cake calculator). Unfortunately I don’t have 2 of each tin so I’ll be doing a double layer for each. Any suggestions on the baking times? Thanks.
- Charlotte Oates says
  13 September 2019 at 4:42 pm
  Ideally the mixture should be split into two tins as some (although not all) people who have tried it in a deep tin have found it doesn’t rise as well in a and can be prone to dipping a little in the middle. However, if you do want to go for it, then it’ll need 45-50 minutes.
Rhea says
11 September 2019 at 11:27 am
How much fondant icing do I need for this cake if I make it as. 9inch round cake? I’ll probably use ready made fondant …
- Charlotte Oates says
  11 September 2019 at 11:45 am
  Pop your measurements into my fondant calculator and it’ll tell you how much you need.

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