All-in-One Chocolate Cake Recipe (2024)

Karin Byers, I've been baking for more than 50 years and made my daughter's wedding cake. When the cuisinart stops dead and smoke pours out, it isn't my pants on fire.

I found this recipe was improved by adding 1/2 tsp salt to the dry ingredients.

Marilyn, I think your pants are on fire.

I think making cake batter in the food processor works just fine. Adding all the ingredients at once does not give the butter and sugar a chance to aerate properly. So the butter gets incorporated with the sugar, add those two ingredients first and pulse a few times to aerate. Then add the dry ingredients and pulse a few times. Then add the wet ingredients and pulse a few times. Then process for about 30 seconds to make sure the batter is smooth.

Scrumptious and lovely. A "melting" crumb (per Nigella), far from dry. Batter light and satiny as pudding. Used a Cuisinart food processor from 1976 without issue. Did skim 1/2c sugar off the frosting. (I've come to trust Nigella's cake recipes, in spite of their oft-dubious sugar content. Flavor is her virtue.) Used two 9" pans for 30mins. Mediocre choc yielded a reliable standby; go premium. This is not devil's food but something old-timey. Enjoy baking your cake.

if you don't have or are averse to using corn syrup, maple syrup tastes just amazing in this frosting. best. cake. ever. I was so happy to find this recipe online as I lost the magazine it was originally printed in a number of years ago. One of my all-time favorite chocolate cakes, and I also put some melted chocolate in to give that fudginess a bit of an extra nudge!

Boy, do we love this cake. I have made it dozens of times - for birthdays, to take as my contribution to a family dinner, whenever. It is my go-to chocolate cake. Just wonderful. I have also frosted it with chocolate buttercream from The Cake Bible in my ongoing attempt to recreate the chocolate cake we used to eat at my grandmother's house. It came pretty darn close to that classic.

I accidentally used all the sour cream from the complete recipe (for icing AND cake) in just the cake (don’t ask) and it turned out fabulously - super moist. Then because I had used up all my sour cream, I used plain yogurt as a substitute for the icing. Everybody raved.

I have never used my food processor for baked goods. Never!
I tried this recipe with all ingredients at room temperature and burned out the motor of my cuisinart.
Thanks, NYT!

Have you thought about not dividing the recipe and freezing half? Bake once - eat twice.
(I don't like to wash dishes)

Just made this and it was delicious- like eating a good milk chocolate candy bar. Noting the dryness others commented on, I “bloomed” the cocoa with 1/3 cup boiling water before adding to the rest. As I do not have a good processor, I mixed by hand starting with creaming butter and sugar together. I lacked white sugar and substituted brown. A lovely cake.

I divided recipe in half and made a smaller cake. My wife loved it. My own preference is for the devil's food cake in the old Silver Palate New Basics. But this is easier. And it froze well.

(Healthier version?) Recipe suggests two 8" cake pans but I had success using only one and making a bigger cake with no filling. Also used organic whole wheat pastry flour, cut back by 1/2 on the sugar and only 4 ozs of butter instead of 6ozs. Next time I will substitute some pureed stewed prunes for some of the butter because it turned out a bit dry. The frosting was superb and gave the cake all the sweetness it needed.

Frosting, using semisweet chocolate, waaaay too sweet!

I made 2 batches for a three-tiered birthday cake. First batch I followed the recipe and it burned the motor on my old cuisinart and it stopped dead.And it did not pour, the batter was like clay! Second batch I checked the comments - used a stand mixer and combined butter and sugar first. Wet ingredients and then the dry - much easier. It’s not the sweetest but I think that’s because it’s meant to go with this ganache, It was still kind of nice, even if a bit dry.

Ruth Reichl's chocolate cake is SOOOOO much better

This is horrible. The cake was dry, and the frosting is ridiculously sweet. Complete waste of ingredients.

I thought this cake was just ok. The batter is thick and heavy, like brownie batter, and the crumb doesn't have the loft and open structure I associate with cake. The flavor is nice, but I found it dry. Creaming the butter and sugar first before adding the other ingredients might help, as one reader suggested. I cooked for only 20 minutes in my convection oven.

Average cake, very good frosting.

I made this as directed...Why would you ever not make this cake? What an awakening to make a cake in a Cuisnart food processor...

A little too sweet, more crumbly than I expected, made as directed. When pouring into baking tins, noticed a few pats of butter not fully incorporated. Put butter & some frosting back into cuisinart for a few whirls then added to the cake pan anyway. Used glass baking dishes. Next time I will add sugar & butter first, then rest of the ingredients. Also will reduce the powdered sugar. Definitely will make again--so easy! BUT need to bring eggs, butter & sour cream to room temperature!

Excellent cake. I used 180g sugar and ~4 tbls butter. Added 1 teaspoon vinegar. My go to chocolate cake. So easy and excellent results. A fine crumb, not gooey.

Texas sheet cake! How do I not see any mention of that? Easy for a relative newbie baker using a stand mixer. Personally disappointed with the taste. We like sweet but my family and I thought this was particularly one-note. I wish I'd read these cooking notes more carefully ahead of time and taken the suggestion to add salt to the dry. Bonus Comment: Nigella's Chocolate Guinness Cake is amazing.

The recipe indicates that you cool the two layers for 10 minutes, the take them out of their pans and begin frosting. When I did this, the frosting melted. I soldiered on—perhaps some melting would infuse the cake with goodness! Halfway through frosting the 2nd layer, it cracked in two. Pulling the waxed paper strips out later caused further fissures. The whole thing now looks like a science project realistically demonstrating the important faults of California post The Big One. FYI.

Not very chocolaty, and pretty dense. Batter was ridiculously thick. Pretty disappointing

Just made this but used dark cocoa powder and also put a bit of espresso in the frosting. Tastes pretty good to me.

Thought the cake itself was dry and not that flavorful? I don’t have a food processor so did all by hand, the batter was extremely thick. However, Loved the frosting! And might make just the frosting bit again.

This doesn't have a lot of flavour. I had my doubts about the recipe, but I chose it because I wanted something really quick. It rose well, but it doesn't taste of much, and I'd choose something with more cocoa and mix it by hand next time.

No cuisinart - used a hand mixer to cream butter and sugar, added dry ingredients and beat those in then added the wet and beat those in. Worked perfectly. As others have commented, the resultant sponge was fairly dense and a little dry. I think this is a cake that needs to be taken out of the oven when the center is not quite cooked through to fix the issue. I will try that next time, it's worth a go as the cake has a great flavor and the frosting is really, really good!