We love chocolate cake with vanilla frosting (you’ll get the frosting next week). I make chocolate cake or brownies a lot, frankly — at least compared to the other treats I make. But this one was better than most — rich but not overpowering, sweet but not too sweet, and moist and yummy all around. Everyone liked it.
For a real “treat,” use unbleached white flour (I’ve used it a bit recently because I keep forgetting to sprout some wheat…must get on that). For a healthier treat, use sprouted. It changes the texture only slightly. Top it with whipped cream, chocolate sauce, fresh fruit — or use real buttercream (which uses no powdered sugar at all!).
Chocolate Cake
Ingredients:
- 1 c. butter, softened
- 1 1/2 c. maple syrup
- 3 eggs
- 1 tsp. sea salt
- 1 tbsp. baking powder
- 1 c. cocoa powder
- 2 c. unbleached flour or sprouted flour
- 1 c. milk
Directions:
Step 1: Add the butter, maple syrup, vanilla, and eggs to your bowl. Stir this together.
Step 2: Then, add your cocoa powder, salt, and baking powder.
Step 3: Stir together well. A hand mixer is very helpful to get it to mix smoothly.
Step 4: Add half the flour, then milk, then the other half the flour. Beat well.
Step 5: Pour the cake into two 8″ round pans, or 8″x8″ square pans. A 9×13 would work, or it should make 18 – 24 cupcakes.
Step 6: Bake at 350 for 25 – 30 minutes (test for doneness by sticking a toothpick in the center — if it comes out clean, it’s done).
Step 7: After the cake cools, frost or top as desired and serve!
In the original version of this recipe, I had my then 4-year-old daughter help me do it — in 2012. She’s a little more independent in her baking now! (She made the cupcakes used to update the images herself.) I couldn’t help but keep one image of her helping me back then, it was too cute!
Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
- 1 c. butter softened
- 1 1/2 c. maple syrup
- 3 eggs
- 1 tsp. sea salt
- 1 tbsp. baking powder
- 1 c. cocoa powder
- 2 c. unbleached or sprouted flour
- 1 c. milk
Instructions
- Add the butter, maple syrup, vanilla, and eggs to your bowl. Stir this together.
- Then, add your cocoa powder, salt, and baking powder.
- Stir together well. A hand mixer is very helpful to get it to mix smoothly.
- Add half the flour, then milk, then the other half the flour. Beat well.
- Pour the cake into two 8″ round pans, or 8″x8″ square pans. A 9×13 would work, or it should make 18 – 24 cupcakes.
- Bake at 350 for 25 – 30 minutes (test for doneness by sticking a toothpick in the center — if it comes out clean, it’s done).
- After the cake cools, frost or top as desired and serve!
How do you top your chocolate cake?
The cake looks so yummy! I had a question prompted by seeing the Trader Joe’s flour in the pictures. I am soon moving closer to a Trader Joe’s and was wondering what you have found to be a good price/quality there.
This is going to be my birthday cake! So excited!
Love the pics utilizing “your little helper”. What a cutie!
to make it dairy free, could you use coconut oil and milk?
Hi Teresa, I’m sure it would work! I haven’t tested this cake that way, but I often bake things using coconut products interchangeably with butter/milk.
[…] This one, while not the fluffy delight a cake mix always turns out, was moist, rich, chocolatey, and smooth. Still heavy and dense, but not badly so. It reminded me of a chocolate mousse cake. I would make it again… but I would still like to find a fluffy one! I know, I need to get some sucanat and give that a try… and maybe see if I could find whole wheat pastry flour — ultra grain is as close as we can get at our local stores. […]
[…] chocolate cake is also from MAM. Mine is much darker than her picture, perhaps because I have Hershey’s […]