This from scratch chocolate butter cake is super moist and easy to make. Because it’s actually a chocolate cake with butter recipe, the cake has a really rich flavor to it that’s perfect for birthdays, or any time you feel like a homemade chocolate cake.
Hey there! Before you scroll, there’s lot’s of important stuff in the post!…including the FAQ section, which may answer any questions you might have about this recipe. Enjoy!
Ok, you might know that vanilla cake is my favorite, especially this one. I feel like most people, except for me, pick chocolate cake as THEIR favorite, so I wanted to give myself a challenge.
The challenge was to create a chocolate cake that I felt was as tasty as my favorite vanilla one. Now, that’s a challenge coming from this vanilla cake enthusiast, but I think I have done it.
This Chocolate Butter Cake is super moist, but it’s not a complete chocolate overload.
I LOVE this chocolate cake. Yep, you heard me right. I actually said I love a chocolate cake. Mark that one down on your calendar.
This cake has a dense crumb, but still light (does that even make sense?). It’s made with real butter with just a bit of oil. I love it because it’s not so overloaded with a super chocolaty flavor and I can still taste the butter flavor coming through. It also doesn’t feel as spongy as some of the oil chocolate cakes do.
LET’S TALK ABOUT SOME OF THE INGREDIENTS IN THE CHOCOLATE BUTTER CAKE:
Butter: Most recipes for chocolate cake that I’ve made, call for all oil and no butter. The oil really makes the cake moist, but I just prefer the denseness and the taste of a butter cake. So, I went about creating a chocolate butter cake that would actually stay moist.
You will be using a bit of oil in this cake to add a bit more moistness to it, but the butter is the shining star.
Brown Sugar: This isn’t normally in a chocolate cake, but I find that brown sugar really gives this cake a deeper flavor and provides extra moisture.
Coffee: For the liquid, I went with coffee. As my mom would always say, “Don’t knock it ’til you try it.” I promise you this cake won’t taste like coffee. In fact, you won’t even taste the coffee at all. It just helps to bring out the other flavors.
Cocoa powder: You’ll want to use unsweetened cocoa powder NOT dutch processed. Why? Because dutch processed cocoa isn’t acidic like regular unsweetened natural cocoa powder is and since you’ll be adding in baking soda, if you use dutch processed, that could mess up the rise and texture of the cake.
MIXING METHOD FOR THE CHOCOLATE BUTTER CAKE:
The mixing method for this cake is just the classic creaming method, but even easier.
With the creaming method, you basically whip up the butter and sugar until fluffy, then you alternately add in your dry and liquid ingredients.
When I originally wrote this recipe, the instructions went through creaming the butter and sugar for a couple minutes and later adding in the hot water. While I really think it’s important to mix the butter and sugar well, I’ve determined that it’s not necessary to mix it quite as long with this one.
Basically, it’s really not necessary to whip the butter and sugar for several minutes for this cake, because you’ll later add in the hot coffee (or hot water) and that will essentially melt the butter and the sugar.
Tips & FAQs for Making the Chocolate Butter Cake:
If you really can’t stand the idea of adding in coffee (remember, it won’t taste like coffee, it just enhances the flavor of the chocolate), you can actually just use really hot water instead. The cake will still taste great.
Should I use dutch cocoa or regular cocoa powder?
Use regular unsweetened natural cocoa powder. Dutch cocoa powder is made differently and you would need to make adjustments to the baking soda and baking powder if you use dutch processed.
When you say brown sugar, does it matter if it’s dark or light brown sugar?
It doesn’t really matter. Just use what you have. I used light brown, but dark brown is fine too. Also make sure you pack the brown sugar into your measuring cup.
Well this recipe is now my best ‘go to’ chocolate cake. It’s simple to make (no complicated steps) and it’s great for birthdays, or practically any other time you feel like chocolate cake.
I filled and frosted this cake with my double chocolate buttercream.
Video:
Now onto the cake recipe!
Note About Recipe Measurements: I write recipes using volume (cups) measurements because here in the U.S., this is what people are more familiar with and I don’t want anyone to feel intimidated when baking. For metric/weight measurements, click the ‘metric’ button under the ingredients in the recipe card below. The weights are converted by a program, not me, and it’s just a best guess. I can’t guarantee that weighing the ingredients will produce the exact same results, since I test recipes using volume measurements.
Recipe
Chocolate Butter Cake
Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- ¾ cup cocoa (I used Hershey’s cocoa – not dutch processed)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup brown sugar (packed)
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup butter (1 stick)
- ¼ cup oil
- 2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (or vanilla extract)
- 1 cup whole milk
- 3 large eggs
- 1 cup hot coffee
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 8 inch round pans.
- In a mixing bowl, add the room temp butter and the brown and granulated sugar. Beat on medium until well mixed.
- In another bowl, mix together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl, mix together the oil, vanilla, milk and eggs. (You’ll add the coffee later.) Set aside.
- Now you'll add in your dry and liquid ingredients alternately. Take a third of the flour mixture and add into the butter and sugar mixture. Beat on low/medium just until combined.
- Add in half the liquid ingredients (not the coffee yet) and beat on medium just until combined.
- Add in the next third of the flour mixture, mix, then the second half of the liquid mixture and mix just until combined. Now add in the last third of the flour mixture and beat just until combined.
- Add in the hot coffee and mix until well combined. Don’t over mix. Once it’s combined, stop mixing. You don’t want to mix for several minutes, that’s too long.
- Pour into prepared pans and bake at 350 degrees for approximately 35 to 40 minutes.
- Set on wire racks to cool for about ten minutes, then turn out the cake layers onto the racks and remove the pans to cool completely.
Notes
Nutrition
How to Share
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Tools Used to Make This Recipe:
I hope you enjoy this cake as much as I do!
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Find the webstory at this link: Scratch Chocolate Cake with Butter
Angel
Hi! I just want to ask if there are any adjustments to the baking time and other aspects when I plan to bake it in a 3×19 baking pan? Thank you so much!
Kara
Hi Angel, everything should stay the same unless the pan is one of those dark-coated non-stick pans. If it is, just lower the temp to 325 degrees F and bake it for a bit longer.
Marvetta E Keith
Can I make the chocolate butter in 9×13 instead? If so how long to bake it?
Kara
Yes, this should be fine baked in a 13×9 inch pan. The baking time should be about the same. Just start checking it about 10 minutes earlier just to be safe, but should still be around the same time.
Sarah
can I use substitute buttermilk instead of whole milk?
Kara
Hi Sarah, using buttermilk instead of regular milk would introduce a bit more acid and would mean that perhaps the baking soda amount wouldn’t be enough. You could try it as is and see how to goes, but it might take some tinkering and testing to get it perfect.
Amanda
Another Sunday graced by a Kara cake! I made this when we got home from church and I have to say this is the most delicious chocolate cake I have ever eaten! I paired it with your Double Chocolate Buttercream as suggested and it is to die for! I love the density of this cake; it baked up nicely. The perfect balance of chocolate flavor, not overpowering. I love your recipes!
Kara
Hey Amanda…that’s awesome! I laughed when I saw ‘Kara cake’…love that. 🙂 I’m really glad you loved this one. I’m actually not a huge chocolate cake fan, but this one…always changes my mind. lol I agree and feel like it’s not an overpowering amount of chocolate, which I love. Anyway, thanks for the great review!
Susan
I’m allergic to coffee-what can I add instead? Hot water? Hot whole milk?
Kara
Hi Susan, just use very hot water and it will be just fine.
Joana
Hi there, I just want to ask, my oven is small.
Can I make the entire recipe and cook seperatly?
Kara
Joana, I think that would work okay as long as you bake the batter for the second cake layer right after the first one bakes. Just chill it while the first layer bakes, then bake the second.
Kate
Hi Kara
My third child is getting married in 3 weeks so I have my third wedding cake under way 😬 My freezer is full of your chocolate butter cake and your vanilla cake. My go to recipes for celebration cakes.
I don’t love layers of just buttercream though, I like to add ‘fillings’ to the cakes. The trial cakes for my son had lemon curd in the vanilla and salted caramel in the chocolate cake.
I’ma bit concerned though as the bride has requested a double barrel cake and the fillings I used were quite soft/runny. I used a buttercream dam but I’m hoping to use something thicker for the final cake as it will be much bigger and heavier.
Do you have any recipes for cake fillings (lemon /caramel as per the wedding couples request!) or any tips to help?
Kara
Hi Kate, you are a brave mom for making all these wedding cakes. 😉 I know it’s stressful, but I’m glad to know you’ve been pre-baking and freezing and also happy that the chocolate butter cake and vanilla cake are your go-to recipes. yay! I do have a few filling recipes on the site, but I’m not sure they’re what you’re looking for. This link should list all the frosting and filling ideas I have on the site: https://iscreamforbuttercream.com/category/recipes/frostingsfillings/
For the salted caramel, I don’t know if this would be something you’d want to do, but when I was making wedding cakes for people, I had a really tall wedding cake to make and it needed to be extra sturdy and abide by the cottage food laws, but they wanted caramel-flavored filling. I actually ended up adding in caramel flavoring (from LorAnn oils) to just straight American buttercream…that way I could make the consistency as thick as I needed to, but it still tasted like caramel. It was actually very good. It would be possible to do the same thing for the lemon filling if you didn’t want to go with actual lemon curd.
If you’re set on doing a lemon curd or actual caramel filling, then I think the best you could do would be to spread a little buttercream onto the cake layer (just like a little over a crumb’s coat worth) and then add the icing dam, then the filling. The small amount of buttercream first will keep the filling from sinking into the cake too much.
For the icing dam though, you could make a small amount of super thick buttercream. I mean like add a BUNCH of confectioner’s sugar to it and make it really stiff…almost like fondant thick. This is just for the icing dam part though. I got this trick from the SugarEd cake decorator and I did it and it seems to work better as a dam than just straight buttercream. Then after you pipe that very thick icing dam, add the filling, but don’t fill too much.
Anyway, this was a long answer, but maybe it gave you some ideas to test out. I’m sure everything will go really well for the wedding…you sound well prepared. 🙂
Sue
Kara, I love the moist white cake recipe. I checked out your chocolate because I’m interesetd in making a marble cake. Do you have any hints or recommendations for using both recipes to make marble?
Kara
Hi Sue, I actually have a good marble cake recipe on the site! Here’s a link to that: https://iscreamforbuttercream.com/scratch-marble-layer-cake/
I mean you could always do a white cake, then a chocolate cake and make a marble cake, but that would be WAY more batter than you’d need. You could cut each recipe in half and do it, but what I’ve found is that you only need a small amount of chocolate batter compared to white batter when making a marble cake. That marble cake recipe link above takes that into consideration and will make a regular-sized layer cake (8 inches). It’s similar to the vanilla cake recipe on this site and similar to the moist white cake, but uses butter instead and whole eggs, so it’s very moist and flavorful.
Domanic
Hi I’ve made this wonderful recipe many times and was wondering how it would translate to cupcakes?? would I have to do any different measurements?
Kara
So glad you love this one! So, I actually haven’t used this recipe for cupcakes, but I think it would work just fine. Just mix it up the same, no different measurements, then add batter to about 24 cupcake liners about 2/3 of the way up. Bake at 350 degrees F and start checking at about 20 minutes although they might need to be baked a little longer. I do have a recipe on the site that was written specifically for cupcakes and it’s very similar to this one. I’ll put the link here if you’d like to check it out: https://iscreamforbuttercream.com/best-chocolate-cupcakes/
Patti
Your Chocolate Butter Cake is my absolute go to! As a home baker this is the ONLY chocolate cake recipe I ever use. I have had many clients absolutely rave that this was the BEST tasting chocolate cake they have EVER had. In my opinion, this is simply perfection!
Kara
Hi Patti, that’s great to hear! Thanks so much for that wonderful review…that makes me so happy. 🙂
Maartje
This was the most delicious chocolate cake I have ever made. I made it for my toddlers birthday party. I used my easy layer 6 inch cake pan set (5 layers) and had enough batter to make 10 cupcakes next to the cake. Easily fed 20+ people from this cake. I used a strawberry and cream filling and a vanilla buttercream on the outside. DELICIOUS! And also easy to make!
Kara
Wow what a compliment! I’m so glad you loved it. 😊 I really like that you paired it with strawberry and cream filling and the vanilla buttercream. That sounds amazing! 😍 Thank you for your wonderful review. 💖
Carol
I’m going to make this cake sounds delicious. My family preferred to have just icing on the top so how long would you cook it for in a 10” round pan
Kara
So are you baking in one 10″ pan or two? If just one, then you will have some batter left over. I would bake it for about the same amount of time as listed in the recipe. If you are using two, 10-inch pans, then there won’t be enough batter and you’ll need to mix up about 1 1/2 recipe batches. You’ll bake for the same amount of time listed in the recipe. Hope this helps!
Lesley Borrowman
Fantastic recipe! My husband and son wanted to make a chocolate cake, and I found this recipe because I wanted one with butter, not just oil. When I read the method, I knew this was the one. It was very clear and step by step. This was helpful for my husband and son, who don’t have quite as much baking experience as I have. The cake is delicious and moist. I will definitely add this to my recipe box! I used a chocolate buttercream that my son really likes.
Kara
Oh I’m so glad you all loved this one! This review just makes me happy. 🙂 It’s good to know the instructions were clear enough for less experienced bakers. That is one of my BIG goals, so that people aren’t scared away from baking a cake from scratch. Thanks so much for the wonderful review!
Maya
Hi
I would love to try this recipe. Will it affect the taste if I use buttermilk instead of milk?
Thank you, hoping to hear from you soon.
Kara
Hi Maya, I think it would be okay. The recipe calls for baking soda, so that might help a little, but I don’t think it will affect the taste much, if at all.
Mrs. B
I made this cake and the double chocolate buttercream frosting. Even my daughter who is a non chocolate cake lover, LOVED IT! I love chocolate and it was great for me.
Kara
Yay!!! So glad it was a hit! I’m like your daughter and not a huge chocolate cake fan, but I really like this one too. 😊 Thank you for the great review!
Irin
Omg I’ve tried so many chocolate cake recipes and I finally found the one that I’ll bake for the rest of my life and this is it. The search is over. Dense and moist. Perfect chocolate butter cake.
Kara
That’s awesome! So glad you love it and thanks so much for your great review!
Shelley Wood
I’m trying to find a great chocolate cake recipe that does not have any seed oils in the ingredients. This one is almost perfect if I could eliminate the oil. Do you think I could make this with only butter and no oil? Would you increase the amount of butter in that case? Or I could substitute Olive oil instead of vegetable oil, but I expect it would affect the flavor of the cake? I’d appreciate any input you might have.
Kara
Hi Shelley, these are great questions. Yes there are several options here to do this without seed oil. First, you can just use butter in place of the oil. I’d actually add in a bit more than the 1/4 cup called for though, maybe a 1/3 of a cup of butter. The cake might not be as super moist, but it’ll still be good and not make a major difference. The other option is to use another oil like you suggested. I think olive oil could work, although it could add a bit of taste. Since it’s only a 1/4 cup though, and the chocolate flavor will overpower the olive oil flavor a bit, it might work out just fine. You could also use coconut oil if that’s an option for you. I hope this helps and I’d love to know what you go with and how it worked out! It will help others as well who’d like to make this without seed oils.
Nicola
Hi! I tried the recipe with extra virgin olive oil (same volume) and it turned out amazing! no one could taste it until I mentioned it. Thank you for the recipe!!!!
Kara
Oh yay!!! I am so glad that worked! Thank you for letting me know and for the awesome review. I’m sure your comment will also help others who are looking for other oil alternatives. 🙂