Chocolate fudge cake is my favourite kind of cake, it’s always so chocolaty and….fudgy. I guess that’s why it’s called chocolate fudge cake.
Anyway, I’ve posted a chocolate cake recipe before, but I’ve been wanting to make a new one. I felt like there was a few things that could have been improved.
So here we are, I am in love with this recipe. The cake layers are so soft and fluffy and the icing is so fudgy!
Video Tutorial
The fudge icing
When making this cake, the first thing you want to do is make the icing. The reason why I recommend doing this first is because this icing needs a few hours to set up.
It will be very runny at first but after a few hours in the fridge, it’ll become nice and thick.
Please wait for it to thicken, it may seem like nothings happening but it just takes some time.
Here are the ingredients you are going to need to make this icing:
- Dark chocolate – make sure to use dark chocolate, milk or white won’t set up the same way. If you don’t like the taste of dark chocolate, don’t worry. Icing sugar is being added so it gets rid of that bitter taste. If you feel like it is still slightly bitter though, you could mix in some more icing sugar, before it has been left to set.
- Unsalted butter – I like to use unsalted butter so that I can control the amount of salt in the icing, but salted butter works too. Just don’t add any extra salt.
- Icing sugar – also known as powdered sugar.
- Double cream – also known as heavy cream.
- Salt – to enhance the flavours. Don’t add this if you’re using salted butter.
Ingredients for the cake layers
Here are the ingredients you will need to make the cake:
- Cocoa powder – unsweetened cocoa powder is always best to use.
- Hot water mixed with coffee – this coffee is going to intensify the chocolate flavour.
- Oil – this will make the cake moist. Any flavourless oil works but I always use vegetable.
- Buttermilk – this will also make the cake moist.
- Eggs
- Plain flour – also known as all purpose flour.
- Sugar – I’m using a mixture of both granulated sugar and light brown sugar. The brown sugar adds extra flavour and moisture.
- Baking soda – to make the cake rise.
- Vinegar – this will react with the baking soda, giving you a fluffy velvety cake.
Ingredient substitutions
A few of the ingredients I used for this recipe, I usually get asked a lot if they can be left out or if there are any substitutes.
So I felt like I should talk about those ingredients.
The coffee
A lot of chocolate cake recipes use coffee in them. All the coffee does is intensify the chocolate flavour, it makes your cake taste more chocolaty.
The coffee does not make your cake taste coffee flavoured at all, so if you don’t like coffee and are worried about that, you don’t need to be.
With that being said, if you really wanted to leave it out, you could. Just make sure to still add the hot water!
The oil
I like to use oil when I make chocolate cake, instead of butter.
When it comes to cakes, oil adds a lot of moisture, whereas butter adds flavour.
With chocolate cakes though, once you add chocolate to something, that becomes the main flavour. So I feel like butter doesn’t do much.
So I go with oil instead, so the cake can have that extra moisture. If you wanted to use butter though, you could. Use 200g and melt it before you add it to the other ingredients.
Buttermilk
This is another ingredient that makes the cake moist.
If you didn’t have buttermilk, plain natural yoghurt is the best substitute, I use this a lot.
Or instead you could make a buttermilk substitute by mixing together 120ml of whole milk and 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice or vinegar together. Leave this aside for 10 minutes, then it’s ready to use.
But I do think actual buttermilk or plain yoghurt is the best 2 ingredients to use.
The vinegar
When making the cake batter, the last thing I did was mix together some vinegar and baking soda. Then I added this into the batter.
This is something that is usually done in red velvet cakes.
Essentially the vinegar reacts with the baking soda which gives your cake an extra lift as it bakes, giving you a fluffy cake that has a velvety texture.
I wanted my chocolate cake to also be fluffy and velvety, so I added vinegar to this too.
I used white wine vinegar but apple cider vinegar works great too.
If you didn’t have either, lemon juice will work, but personally I think vinegar is a little better, but lemon juice will work!
What cake tins to use
I baked my cake layers in three 6 inch cake tins.
I like when cakes have 3 layers, I think cakes look nice when they’re tall.
But if you only have 8 inch tins, that’s fine too. Just pour your batter into two 8 inch tins instead of three 6 inch ones.
Just a heads up though, if you are using 8 inch tins, the baking time might be a little different. Just keep an eye on them, they’re done when a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
This isn’t the kind of cake that sinks when you open the oven door so don’t worry about that, you can check on them!
I make a lot of cake recipes. Here are some other ones I think you might like:
Chocolate Fudge Cake
Ingredients
- For the fudge icing:
300g dark chocolate
140g unsalted butter
200g icing sugar
380ml double cream
1/4 teaspoon salt
- For the cake:
50g cocoa powder
80ml hot water mixed with 1 teaspoon instant coffee
200ml vegetable oil
120ml buttermilk
4 eggs
200g plain flour
125g brown sugar
125g granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons white vinegar
Directions
- Making the fudge icing:
- In a pot, add all the ingredients for the fudge icing.
- Place this onto medium heat and heat all of this, whiles constantly stirring, until all the chocolate and butter has melted and you have a smooth mixture.
- Pour this into a bowl and leave this to set in the fridge. You want it to become a thick spreadable mixture, this could take a few hours. During this time, every now and then give the icing a mix.
- Making the cake layers:
- Start by pre-heating your oven to 180c/350f. Also grease and line three 6 inch cake tin.
- In a large bowl, add the cocoa powder and hot water/coffee. Whisk this until smooth.
- Add the oil, buttermilk and eggs into this and whisk until combined. Now add both sugars and the flour, whisk just until you get a smooth batter.
- In a separate small bowl, add the baking soda and then pour the vinegar over it. This will start bubbling, just give it a quick mix then straight away pour it into your cake batter. Whisk until incorporated.
- Pour this batter into your cake tins and bake at 180c/350f for around 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
- Once baked, leave them to cool completely.
- Putting the cake together:
- Once your cakes have cooled completely and your icing has become thick and spreadable, you can put the cake together.
- I cut the tops of my cake layers off so that I have flat even layers but you don't need to.
- Place one of the layers down onto a board or plate, spread some icing onto this. Add another layer, more icing, and then the final layer of cake.
- Now you can just decorate however you want. I didn't really do anything, I just spread a little icing on the sides and then dusted some icing sugar on top.
- After that, cut into it and enjoy!
i made this cake for my friends birthday and it was scrumptious, moist and fudgy but also light, everyone rated it a 10/10 apart from one ungrateful friend who “doesn’t like chocolate cake”. unbelievable 🙄
Author
i think you need to replace that one friend
if i were to double the recipe should i double the baking soda and vinegar?
Author
yesss double both of them!
Would it be alright if I used dutch processed cacao in this recipe?
Author
yesss either works!
Hi Ash, absolutely love your content!
Want to make this for my boyfriend’s birthday next week, but I don’t have 3 cake tins. Can I put the cake in a bigger one and then cut it or should I bake it in a smaller tin one by one?
X from Sweden
Author
hi it depends on the size tin you have. if you have two 8 inch tins, you can use those. Or if your tin is bigger than this, you can just pour the batter into one and cut it after!
Hi Ash, I messed up and added half and half instead of heavy cream to the icing(language difficulties), is there something I could do to make this icing less liquidy?
Author
hi you could try melting some more chocolate and mixing this into it!