Classic Chocolate Layer Cake

How to Cook Classic Chocolate Layer Cake

Tap a step to highlight it, or turn on Cook Mode for large type and step-by-step focus.

1. Heat the oven to 175°C / 350°F. Butter three 20 cm tins, line the bases and dust with cocoa rather than flour.

   Mark done

2. Whisk the cocoa into the boiling coffee until smooth and leave to cool to warm. It will look like thin mud and smell like the finished cake.

   Mark done

3. Whisk the flour, both sugars, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.

   Mark done

4. Whisk the buttermilk, oil, eggs and vanilla together, then whisk in the cooled cocoa mixture.

   Mark done

5. Pour the wet into the dry and whisk just until smooth. The batter will be very thin — pourable, closer to a crêpe batter than a cake batter. That is correct.

   Mark done

6. Divide between the tins, about 480 g each, and bake 30 to 34 minutes until a skewer comes out with a crumb or two clinging.

   Mark done Start 30 min timer

7. Cool in the tins 15 minutes, then turn out onto racks and cool completely, at least 1 hour. Warm layers will melt buttercream.

   Mark done

8. For the buttercream, beat the butter alone for 5 minutes until visibly paler. This is the difference between silky and grainy.

   Mark done Start 5 min timer

9. Add the icing sugar and cocoa in three additions, beating well, then the melted chocolate, cream and salt. Beat 3 minutes more.

   Mark done

10. Level the layers with a serrated knife, stack with a generous 150 g of buttercream between each, then coat the outside thinly, chill 20 minutes, and finish with the rest.

    Mark done

Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.

Something wrong or unclear in this recipe? Report a problem with this recipe.

Keep an Eye on These

1. Weigh the batter into the tins. Layers of different thickness are the single most obvious sign of a home-made cake.
2. Room-temperature eggs and buttermilk, genuinely. Cold dairy seizes the oil into specks that never disperse.
3. If the buttercream splits, it is too cold: warm the outside of the bowl briefly and beat again.

Common Substitutions & Variations

• Out of buttermilk? The usual stand-in is a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar stirred into 250 ml of ordinary milk and left five minutes; it is thinner than cultured buttermilk, so a batter may need a little less of it.

A Little Background

Cocoa powder is mostly starch and locked-up flavour compounds, and pouring boiling liquid over it — blooming — dissolves those compounds so the cake tastes of chocolate rather than of dust. Coffee does not make it taste of coffee; it deepens the bitter notes that read as darkness. Oil rather than butter keeps the crumb soft straight from the fridge, because oil stays liquid at cold temperatures where butter sets firm, and buttermilk supplies the acid the bicarbonate of soda needs to lift a batter this wet.

To Go With It

Cold milk · Black coffee · Raspberries, to cut the richness

Storing Leftovers

Under a dome at room temperature for 3 days; refrigerated for a week, but bring slices to room temperature before serving. Un-iced layers freeze, well wrapped, for 3 months.

Questions People Ask

The Numbers per Serving

Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.

Your notes on this recipe

Cooked this? Keep a note for next time

Your own rating out of 5

5 stars★ 4 stars★ 3 stars★ 2 stars★ 1 star★

Your note

Save note

Private to you: notes and ratings are saved in this browser only, are never sent anywhere, and other readers cannot see them.