Let me show you a new to me recipe for the best Dark Chocolate Cake With Whipped Cream Frosting. Birthdays will never be the same around here!
I come from a long line of pie lovers… which means you won’t find cake at most of our family gatherings, even birthdays. We snub our noses at store bought cakes and are proud to be on TEAM PIE… So it’s no surprise to me that I only have a handful of cake recipes here on Lovely Little Kitchen. But this Dark Chocolate Cake With Whipped Cream Frosting is a game changer for me! I made it for my husband’s birthday recently after he specifically requested a cake (WHAT?) and I’m so glad he did.
It’s so easy to make, requiring one bowl, regular all-purpose flour, and a hand mixer. Nothing fancy, and nothing I can’t handle even though cake is something I probably make once a year. And it’s so delicious!!! Super moist and fudgy, with a rich chocolate flavor without being too sweet.
The frosting I paired with it is my homemade whipped cream with some dark chocolate cocoa powder added to it. It keeps beautifully in the fridge so you can make it even a couple days ahead of time.
Since I’m not too fancy with my cakes, I kept the decorations simple by smoothing out the sides, dragging a spoon in a spiral shape on top, and tossing on a few sprinkles. We can do this! I even piped a few dots of extra frosting around the bottom edge to cover up a slight gap. Frosting covers a multitude of sins, my friends.
The recipe for this Dark Chocolate Cake came from my neighbor, who found it on the side of the Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder container. I adapted it just slightly, and didn’t use the frosting recipe as written because I wanted something lighter than a traditional buttercream.
If you have something special coming up to celebrate, this is your cake! I tried to list some cake making tips and tricks that were helpful to me in the recipe below, but I’d love to hear what works for you all too. Happy Baking!
Dark Chocolate Cake With Whipped Cream Frosting
This super moist and decadent Dark Chocolate Cake With Whipped Cream Frosting made a cake lover out of me! Try it and you’ll see!
- Prep Time: 30 mins
- Cook Time: 35 mins
- Total Time: 1 hour 5 mins
- Yield: 12 servings 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
For the Cake
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cups dark chocolate cocoa powder (unsweetened)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1/2 cup oil (I used avocado oil)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon coffee extract
- 1 cup boiling water
For the Chocolate Whipped Cream Frosting
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1/4 cup dark chocolate cocoa powder
- 2 1/2 cups heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
For the Cake
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and spray two nine-inch baking pans with baking spray. Cut four 1 inch by 12 inch strips of parchment paper and arrange them in an “X” across each of the baking pans. This will give you “tabs” to remove the cakes from the pans after they are baked.
- In a large bowl, mix sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Add eggs, milk, oil, and extracts. Beat the ingredients together with a hand mixer on low speed, and then gradually increase to medium speed for about 2 minutes.
- Slowly stir in the boiling water by hand. The batter will be very thin. Don’t worry!
- Evenly divide the batter between the two baking pans and bake for 33-35 minutes. A toothpick inserted into the center should come out mostly clean, or with a few crumbs attached.
- Let the pans cool on a cooling rack for 10 minutes, and then place into the freezer for 1 hour.
For the Chocolate Whipped Cream Frosting
- Over a large bowl, sift powdered sugar and cocoa powder together. Add heavy cream and vanilla extract. Beat on low speed (carefully at first) and gradually increase the speed to high as the mixture thickens. After about 3-4 minutes, you will have stiff peaks in the cream and it will be ready to use for frosting.
To Assemble
- Place a few more strips of parchment or wax paper around the edge of your cake plate or pan. This will keep the surface clean while you are frosting. Place the first cake (domed side down) onto the center of the plate.
- Remove the cakes from the freezer, and use the tabs to lift them out.
- Scoop about 2 cups of frosting on top of the cake and spread to the edges in an even layer.
- Place the second cake (domed side up) on top of the frosting layer. Add more frosting to the top of the cake, and spread to the edges and down the sides. Keep adding more frosting until the cake is completely covered.
- Use a knife or offset spatula to smooth the edges. I like to drag a spoon around the top of the cake to make a spiral design. If desired, reserve 1 cup of frosting to pipe around the bottom edge of the cake to cover any gap after you remove the parchment paper strips. Add chocolate sprinkles.
- Cover (if possible) and refrigerate until ready to serve. I think this cake tastes best served cold on the day after it is made, which is nice because you can make it ahead and have it all ready to go.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 Piece
- Calories: 553
- Sugar: 49g
- Sodium: 430mg
- Fat: 29g
- Saturated Fat: 13g
- Unsaturated Fat: 13.3g
- Trans Fat: 0.6g
- Carbohydrates: 68g
- Fiber: 1.8g
- Protein: 6.3g
- Cholesterol: 89mg
I made this yesterday- this is the BEST chocolate cake I’ve ever had! I highly recommend this recipe.
I baked the cake of same quantity in 1 pan and it took 50 minutes.
Loved the recipe very much! This is an amazing, moist and perfectly sweet chocolate cake I have ever tried. The tip of eating the cake after a day of refrigeration also turned out to be very useful.
I just tried it a day ago..it was my first time trying the cake with frosting.. it turned out really good..
SO GOOD! I reduced the sugar a bit in both the cake and icing (personal preference), and used powdered instant coffee dissolved in the boiling water (had no coffee extract). This cake is amazingly easy and moist and wonderful! Thank you!
Made this 4x and all of my bosses love it. Used heavy whipping cream from Strauss Creamery family and its just PERFECT! Thank you so much for this!
Hi, Julie!
I was wondering if I could use instant coffee instead of the extract, since I cannot find any in my stores. If so, how much do you think I should use? About 1 tsp, a tbsp? Other than that, this looks AMAZING!!! I’m so excited to try this out! <3
Hi Brooklynn. I used this from online *coffee extract substitute – 1 Tbsp instant coffee mixed with 2 tsp hot water. Let cool. A good brand is Medaglia d’Oro instant espresso or just chicory extract too. Find this Pin and more on Food – Sauces & Staples by Anadiamous. And i used 1/4 teaspoon on both cake and frosting.
Just made this cake. The only thing left out was the coffee. What a mess! It overflowed all over my oven, burning and smoking. I have never had such an event with a cake! I thought the recipe was a bit odd. I am an experienced cook and carefully measured all ingredients. This cake sunk the minute it went in the oven and remained sunken. It cooked, and tastes good. However, I will not utilize this recipe in the future. My oven is also newer, so I know it wasn’t the oven,especially considering I have been baking many things the past month. I am curious to know if this website only publishes the positive reviews. I find it difficult to believe I am apparently the only one to have issues with this recipe.
Karen, I’m very sorry that happened to you – I wish I could say for sure what went wrong. I know it is so frustrating when a recipe doesn’t work out, and your poor oven. I can assure you, I publish all comments unless they are spam. I have made this cake multiple times, have close friends make it every year, and it was given to me by my neighbor and adapted from the side of the Hershey’s dark cocoa tin. The only reason I can think of that it would overflow is if your cake pans were too small. Did you use 9-inch pans? Once again, I’m very sorry for your frustration.
I made this cake the other week and I absolutely loved it!!! I made another one for my coworkers with buttercream frosting and they loved it!!! I will definitely make this again and again. I am thinking of making them into cupcakes but have no idea how long to keep them in the oven.
Made this cake for my son’s birthday in April and loved it. I did it again at thanksgiving. Loved it. My sister bakes all the time, and is way more into it than I am. So I mentioned it to her and she asked for the recipe. So she made the cake and this is how she described it: “this is the cake recipe I have been looking for my entire life! It’s so moist!! Ive tried everything I can think of and it never made it quite as moist. But this is it!”. It’s a delicious cake and if you can get it right, which you should if you follow the directions, it’s one of the best homemade cakes I’ve ever made or had!
Yay, that’s so great! I’m so glad it was such a hit!
I have made this cake 3 times over the past few years ( my daughter found the recipe and requests it every year for her birthday). The first time I made it not one issue, but each of the last two times (including today) both cakes fell in the middle while still in the oven. I know too much levening can cause that, but I follow the recipe exactly and as I said it did not fall the first time I made it. Any suggestions as to what might be going wrong??
Otherwise, it is the most amazing tasting chocolate cake we have ever had. I have baked many , many cakes and chocolate can have a tenedency to be a bit dry…. not this cake! I just need to figure out what is going wrong and causing them to fall, not an attractive cake when you cut and the middle has a “sink hole”, lol.
That is so strange! The only thing I can think of is if your oven temp is not quite right… Not a likely problem, but worth checking just to make sure. I’m sorry you had trouble.
This is THE BEST chocolate cake!
Make this as cupcakes and turned out great! Baked for 18 minutes at 350
My mother-in-law made a chocolate cake with peppermint candies on top, for her nephew, when he was a boy. She just recently passed away, so I tried to recreate the cake for him. Great recipe. Easy to make, even though I did the frosting at their house. My cake decorating skills are not great and next time I would do a dusting of espresso powder rather than peppermint, but it was delicious. I couldn’t find coffee extract, so I used espresso coffee powder from #savoryspiceshop.
I’m on TeAm Pie, too, but this is yummy!
Hi there, I haven’t tried your recipe yet. I want to make a 3 layer 8” chocolate cake for a birthday party. Your recipe is fir 2, 9” inch pan. Do you know by how much I should increase the ingredients??
Also I want to cover my 3 layer cake with buttercream and eventually with fondant and put some decorations on top of he cake. My question is if the cake layers are stable enough so they don’t shrink by the weight of the fondant. I saw the comments that the cake is quit moist. I really liked the ingredients and would like to make the cake but not sure if it would work for my project. Would appreciate if you can answer my questions.
Sorry Sara, I really can’t answer your questions without additional recipe testing.
Had anyone covered this cake with fondant? I’ve made it so many times, its my go to but u have a birthday cake this week I need to decorate and was wondering how it would cover. Thank you!
Made this cake for my dad’s birthday and we all LOVED it. Cake is moist and not too sweet. The whipped cream frosting is much lighter tasting than traditional buttercream frosting- almost mousse like! In fact, we had extra frosting, chilled it and added raspberries for a simple weekday dessert! Loved it and we’ll be making again!
My daughter made this cake today and she commented on how easy it was- so easy in fact , that it probably won’t turn out! I’m 70 years old and I’ve never had or made a better cake in my life❤️
Love this recipe, I have made this a few times now without fail. I used granulated coffee instead of extract, and just whipped cream with vanilla essence. It is so beautiful and everyone loves it. Take this anywhere and I guarentee people will be asking for the recipe.
I’ve made this cake three or four times now and am about to make it again for my hubby. He loves it. My workmates all loved it. Perfectly fudgy and moist and not too sweet just perfect. I hope I never lose this recipe as it will always be my go to chocolate cake! Thank you!
Love this cake. I have made it many times, and it is always great. I usually use hot coffee in place of the boiling water, and omit the coffee extract. I also have made this in a 9×13 cake pan and just iced the top with the whipped topping for ease. Works great either way! Don’t overbake, the moistness is great!
This recipe is amazing! I baked this cake 3 times and everyone loves it! After a day in the refrigerator, it always tastes better!
This cake is absolutely delicious! So easy to make! I love the whipped cream frosting as it makes it lighter and much less sweet. The cake is soft and so chocolatey. 10/10!
This has become our favorite chocolate cake recipe by far. Great chocolate flavor without being overpowering, fluffy light icing, and above all, INCREDIBLY moist cake. I have also made cupcakes using this recipe and just shortening the baking time and they turned out great as well. Highly recommend!
Can I use salted butter instead of oil? My veg oil smells bad. I also have olive oil.
The cake is excellent and really goes well with the whipped cream icing. Best ever for a chocolate cake.
Total disaster. Cake was soup. Wasted a lot of money
Mine is about the same spilled out the top of both 9inch cake pans I used. If anyone makes this make sure you have DEEP 9in cake pans or you’ll spend the rest of the day cleaning out your oven and the house smelling like burnt charcoal chocolate smell.
Spilled out the top of both 9inch cake pans I used. If anyone makes this make sure you have DEEP 9in cake pans or you’ll spend the rest of the day cleaning out your oven and the house smelling like burnt charcoal.
I would try it again. This is the only chocolate cake I make. I even make cupcakes from this recipe and it has never failed. I hope it works for you
Mine was too loose too. It collapsed into a sunken mess.
Can you make this cake a day ahead of time?
What can I use instead of coffee extract?
I love this recipe. Instead of coffee extract and hot water, I use a cup of hot espresso. I also use half butter and half coconut oil for the oil. If it is a little runny I add a little more flour. It always turns out great!
I love this cake. My daughter-in-law doesn’t like chocolate but will eat dark chocolate so I thought I’d try this recipe. Big hit!! I’ve made this several times and everyone raves about it. I even use this recipe for cupcakes, which has also been a crowd pleaser!
Love this cake and the frosting is great! Would like to make just plain whipped cream frosting, so do I adjust the confectioners sugar since I won’t be using chocolate powder?
I followed this recipe to the T. The only addition I made was inserting a cake rod in the center. This cut down the baking time by 6 minutes in the middle was perfectly cooked along with the edges. The negativity is really unnecessary as this is a delicious cake and the only one my husband will have for his birthday!