For some reason, it’s hard for me to land on the perfect chocolate cake. Everyone and their mother’s mother says, “this is the best chocolate cake ever — you’re never going to need another recipe.”
I’m going to spoil the ending: these aren’t it for me.
Which is crazy because I love Scientifically Sweet and Sugarologie! They’re my top 2 dessert recipe developers and I go to their blogs first for almost every dessert except for the chunky cookies I make for Cookie Cazimi.
But, the problem I have with every chocolate cake recipe on the Internet (apparently) — is that they’re not chocolate-y.
Every recipe seems to use chocolate frosting to mask the lack of chocolate flavor in the cake itself.
At least to me.
I mentioned in my mini chocolate cake by Brooki Bakehouse blog post that I don’t think it was my chocolate cake because I didn’t like how fluffy it was, which sounds unreasonable because who doesn’t love fluffy cake?
But, the flavor was too intense and heavy for how light it was; the texture and flavor just didn’t match.
I am going to test the Brooki Bakehouse chocolate cake recipe again with adjusted he leavenings so that the cake is denser, so subscribe to my YouTube or follow me on Instagram to get the update!
But, if you’re not as neurotic as me, I have the scaled down, small batch recipes of these chocolate cakes by two of my favorite recipe developers for you if you’re looking to make mini chocolate cake loaves for your home bakery or your next party!
Scientifically Sweet Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
- 180g Hot Coffee
- 187.50g AP Flour
- 42g Dutch Cocoa
- 3.6g Baking Soda
- 3.6g Baking Powder
- 150g Granulated Sugar
- 82.50g Brown Sugar
- 135g Sour Cream (room temp)
- 90g Canola Oil
- 75g Eggs (room temp)
- 5g Salt
Method
- Follow instructions here.
- Bake for 23-26 minutes.
My Verdict
Not chocolate-y enough.
Sugarologie Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
- 135g Hot Coffee
- 48.38g Dutch Cocoa
- 179.63g Brown Sugar
- 37.50g Granulated Sugar
- 75g Canola Oil
- 3.5g Salt
- 75g Eggs (room temp)
- 90g AP Flour
- 5.4g Baking Powder
Method
- Follow instructions here.
- Bake for 27-31 minutes.
My Verdict
Tasted like cheap grocery store cake. Something about it was too simple in an unrefined way.
The Diane Collective Chocolate Cake?
I tried a hybrid chocolate cake where I increased the cocoa levels of Scientifically Sweet Chocolate Cake to match the ratio in the Sugarologie Chocolate Cake — and weirdly? The chocolate flavor almost evaporated from my taste buds.
I already deleted the recipe, so I won’t be sharing it.
Next time, I will increase the sugar along with the dutch cocoa because I think the sweetness will bring out the chocolate flavor. Without that balance, I think the bitterness just overpowers the chocolate, so I will try that in a future chocolate cake bake-off.
You can see in these images at this chocolate cake is darker like the Sugarologie one.
Who wins the chocolate cake-off?
No one. I don’t even win LOL
But, sometimes that’s how baking goes. Sometimes, things don’t hit even if they should. Because both Scientifically Sweet and Sugarologie are literal scientists!
So while there is nothing chemically wrong with their recipes and are arguably perfect, you just can’t do anything about your taste. Literally.
I’m still on the look out for the perfect chocolate cake 🙁
I have some ideas on how to do that, so subscribe to my YouTube channel or follow me on Instagram for more baking updates as well as tarot and astrology content!
