Not only is this my favourite chocolate layer cake recipe, it is also the only chocolate cake recipe you will ever need. It's deep, dark and delicious and I'll let you in on yet another trade secret we keep up our sleeves at Anges...we add instant coffee granules to the batter to make it THAT much more chocolatey-er. It's a mega-hit with our customers ordering our chocolate cakes in London and we are frequently told it is the best chocolate cake they've ever had!

You can skip the coffee of course, but it really does deepen the flavour of cocoa which just needs a little extra nudge to come alive. Coffee and cocoa often go hand in hand...in fact, cocoa contains caffeine too. Maybe that's why the coffee granules is like the umami to chocolate cakes - I have absolutely zero-scientific evidence behind this theory and 100% confidence that it just works!

You can use our trusted chocolate layer cake recipe for tall 6 inch layer cakes, or an 8 inch layer cake, or even as cupcakes. This recipe yields three 6 inch chocolate sponge layers, or two 8 inch sponge layers, or two dozen cupcakes (you can halve the recipe for one dozen cupcakes and reduce the baking time to 20 minutes).

Chocolate Layer Cake Recipe

Chocolate Sponge Recipe

Ingredients

350g self raising flour, sifted

8 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted

1 tablespoon instant coffee granules

2 teaspoons baking soda

300g caster sugar

4 eggs (medium), lightly beaten

300ml oil (vegetable or sunflower)

300ml milk

4 tablespoons golden syrup

Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 170 degrees celsius and prepare three 6 inch round cake tins by greasing with butter and a light even dusting of flour.

2. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and sugar and mix well.

3. Dissolve the coffee granules in the milk and add into the dry ingredients along with the oil, eggs and golden syrup. Whisk the batter till well mixed and just until no lumps remain.

4. Divide the batter evenly between the cake tins and bake for 30-40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

5. Once baked, bring them out of the oven and let the sponges rest in their tins for around 10-15 minutes before releasing them and cooling to room temperature on wire racks. 

Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream Recipe

Ingredients

150g egg white at room temperature

225g granulated sugar

300g butter at room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

5 tablespoons cocoa powder

Pinch of salt

Method

1. Follow the recipe for our smooth as silk Swiss meringue buttercream.

2. Once the buttercream is ready and smooth, add in the cocoa powder and whip till well mixed.

Decorating Chocolate Layer Cake

Optional Ingredients

Sprinkles

Food Colour gel pastes (pink, green, blue, purple, yellow)

Method

1. Smear a dollop of icing in the centre of an 8" cake board using a cranked palette knife. Place a chocolate sponge layer in the middle and smooth a layer of chocolate buttercream over it.

2. Sandwich and build up the chocolate sponge layers with buttercream until the last sponge layer has buttercream smoothed over and crumb coat the outer edges of the cake with chocolate buttercream, smoothing with the edge of the palette knife or a cake scraper. Chill in the fridge to set for 10-15 minutes.

3. Smooth another layer of chocolate buttercream all over and smooth using the edge of the palette knife or cake scraper. A decorating turn-table helps with getting a super smooth finishing.

4. You delicious chocolate cake is now ready to decorate with swirls of buttercream with a piping bag fitted with any piping nozzle of your choice, sprinkles, or even chocolates and cookies.

It's quite easy to make a dry and dense chocolate cake, due to cocoa powder's drying effects on sponges, but not this recipe! You may panic at how runny the batter is, but the cake rises well and the high proportion of liquid ingredients helps keep the cake moist for days, and the deep chocolatey flavour cannot be beat. 

I hope you make this and love it as much as me and our customers do. If you do use this recipe please do share on instagram and tag me in @angesdesucre #angesdesucre so I can see and salivate from afar. And if you have any questions or comments, drop them below this post!

Lots of love,

Reshmi xoxo