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This chocolate cake recipe is soft, moist, fluffy and richly chocolatey. This has become our go-to chocolate cake. It is always a big hit with everyone who tries it – grown ups and children.
The Swiss Meringue Buttercream frosting is lighter in sweetness compared to traditional American buttercream which makes the cake really shine with intense chocolate flavor.
Wait until you see the next picture. CRAVINGS BIG TIME!!
If you have never tried Swiss Meringue Buttercream, learn how to make it here. It pipes beautifully and it sure tastes amazing! I call it wedding cake frosting – it’s just THAT good!
Ingredients for Chocolate Cake Recipe:
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup canola or extra light olive oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups (190 grams) all-purpose flour, *measured correctly
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 Tbsp baking soda
1/2 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup very warm/hot water
1 Recipe for Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting
Semi-sweet or milk chocolate bar to grate for decor
How to Make Chocolate Cake Recipe:
Prep: Preheat Oven to 350˚F. Grease 2 (9″ round) cake pans. Grease the sides with butter and line the bottom with parchment paper.
1. In a large mixing bowl, with an electric mixer, beat together 2 eggs, 1 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup oil and 2 tsp vanilla until smooth.
2. In a second mixing bowl, sift in 1 1/2 cups flour and 1 cup cocoa powder. Add 1 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 Tbsp baking soda, 1/2 Tbsp baking powdered and 1 tsp salt and whisk to combine. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and whisk until smooth without any lumps, then gradually add 3/4 cup hot water while beating and stir until well combined and smooth.
3. Divide batter evenly between 2 prepared cake pans and bake at 350˚F for 20-25 minutes (mine was perfect at 23 minutes) or until tops are set and a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into center. Cool cakes in pan for 15-20 minutes then run a thin spatula or knife around the edges to loosen from the pan and gently invert onto cooling rack and let cool completely to room temperature before frosting.
Cooks Tip: The cake layers have a very soft crumb so it is important to let them rest in the baking pans and let them firm up slightly before transferring to prevent broken cake layers.
5. While cakes cool, make your frosting. We used this Swiss Meringue Buttercream frosting. Reserve about 1 cup of frosting to pipe roses or poofs over the top.
How to Assemble Chocolate Cake:
1. Carefully place your first layer onto the cake platter and cover with a generous layer of frosting. Gently transfer the next cake layer over the top and frost the top and sides.
2. Finely grate a bar of chocolate and pat the crumbs halfway up the side of the cake and sprinkle around the top rim of the cake. Pipe roses or puffs around the top rim of the cake.
Make-Ahead Tip: Cake can be covered and stored at room temperature for about 24 hours. If storing longer, cover and refrigerate. Bring to room temperature before serving to soften the buttercream.
Chocolate Cake with Swiss Meringue Buttercream
Ingredients
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1/2 cup canola or extra light olive oil
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, *measured correctly
- 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 1/2 Tbsp baking soda
- 1/2 Tbsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 3/4 cup very warm/hot water
- 1 Recipe for Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting
- Semi-sweet or milk chocolate bar to grate for decor
Instructions
Prep:
- Preheat Oven to 350˚F. Grease two (9" round) cake pans. Grease sides with butter and line the bottom with parchment paper.
How to Make Chocolate Cake Recipe:
- In a large mixing bowl, combine: 2 eggs, 1 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup oil and 2 tsp vanilla and beat with an electric mixeruntil smooth.
- In a second mixing bowl, sift in 1 1/2 cups flour and 1 cup cocoa powder. Add 1 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 Tbsp baking soda, 1/2 Tbsp baking powdered and 1 tsp salt. Whisk to combine. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and whisk until smooth without lumps, then gradually add 3/4 cup hot water while beating until well combined and smooth.
- Divide batter between 2 prepared cake pans and bake at 350˚F for 20-25 min (mine was perfect at 23 min) or until tops are set and a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into center. Cool cakes in pan for 15-20 min** then run a thin spatula or knife around the edges to loosen from the pan and gently invert onto cooling rack and let cool completely to room temperature before frosting.
- While cakes cool, make your frosting. We used Swiss Meringue Buttercream frosting. Reserve about 1 cup frosting to decorate the top.
How to Assemble Chocolate Cake:
- Carefully place first cake layer onto platter and cover the top with a generous layer of frosting. Gently transfer the next cake layer over the top and frost top and sides.
- Finely grate a bar of chocolate and pat the crumbs halfway up side of cake and sprinkle around the top rim of the cake. Use reserved frosting to pipe roses or puffs around top rim of cake.
Notes
**Giving the layers time to rest will make cake layers most stable for transfering.
If you make this recipe, I’d love to see pics of your creations on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter! Hashtag them #natashaskitchen
If you are a chocolate lover, this chocolate cake recipe is for you! I hope you have a delicious week, my friends!
This is such an easy and delicious cake!
Did you go to school for cooking or baking?
My request for you to post a blog how eggs or other ingredients important for certain recipe. For example: eggs are essential because they hold structure. Also, how do pan size materrs for baking? Does it matter if you bake it in glass or silver pan?
Do you use cake turntable?
Hi Lana, I will definitely keep that in mind as I am writing out my recipes. The pan size definitely matters for baking, otherwise you would have to make adjustments in baking times and some recipes do bake up differently in different types of pans. I don’t use a cake turntable only because I don’t have one yet! 😉
Can i bake the cake, without adding the salt. Would it still come out great.
Hi Natasha. I have used this recipe to make cupcakes and they have turned out great. Do you think this batter will support a ferrero rocher chocolate baked in the center?
Great question! I believe it should, however, I have not experiemented with that so I can’t advise. I’d love to know how you like it if you experiment.
Hi, My husband has celiac disease and so I only bake things that are gluten free. Will this cake turn out just as nice using gluten free flour? I usually use Bob’s Red Mill 1 for 1 flour.
Hi Sue, I haven’t tried making this one specifically gluten free so I can’t say how it will turn out. If you experiment I would love to know how you like it!
Could you please put the metric measurement for this recipe??
Hi Mona, We are currently working on adding metric measurements to all of our recipes but it is taking some time as we have to add them one at a time. Thank you so much for being patient! In the meantime, check out our post on measuring which should help
Hi Natasha.. should the measurements for the Baking Soda and Baking Powder be in teaspoon instead of tablespoon? Seems like an awful lot of rising agents here if it is really 1/2 TBS each.
Those measurements are correct. it is a fairly large cake.
Hi Natasha,
I make this cake yesterday for my boy’s birthday. I follow exactly your recipe except reduce the sugar, the cake turn out light, moost and fluffy but it somehow taste a bit bitter. Could you tell me whats went wrong? Thanks in advance
Hi Karen, It is likely due to reducing the sugar. There is a good amount of cocoa in this recipe so cutting down the sugar would make the cocoa flavor more pronounced and bitter tasting as cocoa is bitter without sweetness. I hope that helps to troubleshoot. Happy birthday to your boy! 🙂
Thank you so much for the advice 😃
My pleasure!
I feel totally out of place but for the sake of time, in case of an emergency, if I was able to make the frosting but had to use chocolate cake mix (from a box) to make the chocolate cake, what would you recommend adding to a generic boxed chocolate cake mix to make it better?
Hi Mila! I feel the possibilities are endless when it comes to a boxed cake mix. Sometimes it may be easier to start fresh. I don’t have the exact measurements but I’ve read before that using milk instead of water will make the cake richer. Using more eggs should elevate it more but you’d have to add flour and sugar to offset the liquid ingredients. You can add vanilla flavoring or any extract honestly. Some even use sour cream. I hope this helps you a bit. We do have this very simple sponge cake recipe you can try. It only requires 4 ingredients!
I made this for a top wedding cake and it was absolutely amazing! I had 4 cakes and 3 of the recipes came from Natasha’s kitchen and were just perfect 👌
That’s just awesome!!
And I forgot to mention that I made it with half of the sugar, and we could hardly tell the difference 🙂
Good to know, thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much for this amazing recipe! The cake is super moist and the chocolate flavor is perfect. I made this cake for my mom on Mother’s Day and she said she didn’t want me to make any other cake but this one from now on. I just made it again last night, and we only have 1/3 of the cake left! Thank you so much again. 🙂
You’re welcome Kayli! I’m glad to hear how much you and your Mom love the recipe. Thanks for sharing your fantastic review!
Hi Natasha, so I made the cream but it does not look as thick as yours does :/ it’s more on the thinner side. Not sure what I did different. When I mixed the egg whites (after being on the stove) after about 15 min it was quite of a sticky cream, was yours on the sticky side?
Hi Silvia, (assuming everything was done per the recipe) – if the whites are not 100% at room temperature before adding butter, it will take longer to beat together. If the bowl feels at all warm, refrigerate for 10 -15 min increments and rewhip for a few minutes to thicken it up.
Hi Natasha! Do you know if I can use this on медовик? To put it between the layers. Just want to check first and dont want to ruin the cake.
Thanks in advance.
Hi Lena, are you thinking about the medovik with the thin dry cookie layers? A buttercream is not idea for those cakes since the layers will not readily absorb the moisture from a buttercream like they would the frostings I have listed. I haven’t tested it with this specific Swiss Meringue though so I can’t say for sure. If you experiment, please let me know how it goes 🙂
Yes, that is the type of medovik I was thinking. Thank you for your advice.
Blessings.
Can I make this cake with your cream cheese/heavy whip frosting you use for the strawberry cake? Thanks! Love your recipes!
Hi Yuliya, yes I do think that would work 🙂
Hi natasha, to make this plain white vanilla cake would I leave out the cocoa powder?
Hi Karlina, I haven’t tested it that way and since baking is so much a science, it is difficult to make that recommendation. That may work well but given how much cocoa is in this cake, it will likely need to be replaced with more flour. If you experiment, let me know how you liked it 🙂
Hi Natasha,
I make tiered cakes as a hobby, with fondant covering, decorations and all. For these I usually use white cake from a package that is specially for tiered cakes. Last time my daughter wanted a chocolate cake (two tiers) and I just put cocoa in my mix. The cake turned hard, not fluffy and not nice. 2 questions: 1) can I use this recipe for a tiered cake? and 2) Can I put all the batter in one pan and then cut it in layers or not? Thank you! (I have already made your Swiss meringue cream before and it was great).
Hi Gergana, I think it would work but without experimenting I can’t share and specific advice on that.
Hi Natasha! Our family absolutely loves your chocolate cake, and it is our go to cake. It’s never fails and so easy to make. Thank you! I have a question, can I try to make the batter the same way and just bake it as a cupcakes? Do you think it will work or should I use different recipe for a batter? We just so I’m love with this recipe but I need to make a cupcakes for a band kids. Thank you!
Hi Saniya, we typically use one of our 2 posted chocolate cupcakes recipes for cupcakes and this one is closest in texture to this cake recipe. I think it would be worth experimenting though to make this into cupcakes, I just haven’t tried to give you specific instructions on it.
Thank you for the recipe!I want to decorate this cake ombre style.Do you think I can use cocoa powder to color the frosting?
Hi, I haven’t tried using cocoa powder. To make this chocolate, I have only come across recipes that add melted and cooled chocolate. I could be wrong though – maybe do some google research on adding cocoa to swiss meringue buttercream.
Thank you for advise! I used melted chocolate and it worked well!
You’re welcome, I’m glad to hear that!
Can I not use the sour cream? Or what can I use instead of sour cream
Hi Shruti, usually, the next best thing to substitute for sour cream would be Greek Yogurt, but I haven’t tested it in this recipe to be able to recommend it.
I have used greek yogurt and it worked out really well.
That’s so great!
Hi Natasha,
Will a ganache work well with this recipe – like the one you have in the poppyseed roll recipe?
Hi Lucrecia, I think a ganache would work well here.
Thanks Natasha!
My pleasure! 🙂
Is it ok if I make this cake the day before?
Hi Ava, please see the make ahead tip above for more details and here it is also: “Make-Ahead Tip: Cake can be covered and stored at room temperature for about 24 hours. If storing longer, cover and refrigerate. Bring to room temperature before serving to soften the buttercream.”
Hi Natasha! Love ALL of your recipes! Thank you! I would like to make this cake and layer raspberries in between the cake layers, over frosting. Do you think that would work well with this type of frosting? I like to make my cakes a day before and have it sit in the fridge, so it’s nice and moist. Do you think adding raspberries day before would work and they won’t get watery? Thank you in advance for your reply.
Hi Anna, I think that would work to add raspberries between the cake layers. If your raspberries aren’t overripe and pretty fresh, they should still taste and look great after a night in the fridge 🙂