The Best Chocolate Cake Ever

Here at Queen HQ, it’s not always a fight to the death between vanilla and chocolate! We still appreciate a good slice of chocolate cake, and vanilla is a fantastic ‘supporting ingredient’ to help elevate the rich, earthiness of chocolate and minimise the bitterness. But not all chocolate cakes are created equal – from light, fluffy sponges to dark, rich mud cakes, calling out ‘the best’ seems like an impossible task.

Generally speaking, all basic cake recipes will have a variation of flour, eggs, sugar, butter and cocoa. But then things start getting exciting… A dash of coffee brings an additional dark, rich flavour profile and some bakers swear by real chocolate over cooking chocolate. But what about cocoa? Dutch, regular or premium black cocoa powder? The texture results of oil vs. butter is a polarising debate, and then the great deciding factor: buttercream or ganache!

In the interest of science, we scoured the internet to unearth the finest ingredient combinations from our favourite bakers. Each one of these recipes claims to be the best, but we think you should make your way through the list and make up your own mind. Any excuse to bake, right?

1. Best Ever Chocolate Cake

Let’s start our delicious pilgrimage with our go-to Queen chocolate cake recipe. Aptly named, this recipe  is rich, moist and topped with the fluffiest chocolate buttercream. Sour cream creates an extra tender crumb, along with a dash of Vanilla to compliment those earthy chocolate notes.

2. Melt & Mix Chocolate Cake

This fool-proof recipe is thanks to our friend Anneka Manning from Bake Club, who has perfectly demonstrated one of our favourite simple baking techniques – the humble melt & mix! Ready in under an hour, this cake is perfect for a weeknight chocolate fix.

3. Peanut Butter Mudcake

Mudcakes are the Holy Grail of baked goods for those of us who crave easy, chocolate-cakey indulgence. The technique of melting the liquid ingredients together then adding them to the dry results in the characteristic dense, tight crumb – and it’s so easy. Queen Tip: this cake can be made a few days ahead of serving as the flavour and texture will improve with time.

4. Flourless Chocolate Cake

It wouldn’t be a chocolate cake round up without a flourless one! Richy, dense and fudgy topped off with Nutella mousse and honeycomb, no-one will even miss it in this decadent recipe. The secret to baking without flour? Mastering the technique of folding. Queen Tip: use a big bowl, a flexible spatula, and fold from the outside in – and above all, be gentle!

5. Chocolate Sour Cream Bundt

While this cake looks fancy with its sharp bundt edges, it’s actually the secret ingredient that makes it special. The acidity in sour cream shortens the gluten strands in batter, resulting in an extra tender, moist cake crumb. Finish it off with a generous dollop of dark chocolate ganache! We LOVED testing and perfecting this one in the Queen Test Kitchen.

6. “World’s Best” Chocolate Cake

It’s a big call, but if anyone’s qualified to make it, it’s Helen Goh! This ‘world’s best’ chocolate cake ticks all the boxes as far as we’re concerned, with dark chocolate, coffee, cocoa powder AND ganache making it extra rich and super decadent. Better yet, it’s a one-bowl wonder which means less washing up.

7. “Love at First Sight” Chocolate Cake

Call us hopeless romantics, but any recipe attached to a sweet love story is a winner in our books! Blogger Melissa from Modern Honey is a big advocate of oil over butter – she swears it’s the secret to a moist chocolate cake. With buttermilk for extra melt-in-your-mouth texture and a generous layer of chocolate buttercream, we’ve fallen in love just reading this lovely recipe.

8. Nigella Lawson’s Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake 

Nigella has made a bold move with this cake, opting for a loaf shape with no icing at all. But as the name suggests, it has a rich, incredibly dense crumb making it more than moist enough without the addition of buttercream or ganache. Queen tip: like many Nigella recipes, this ingredient list is short and fuss-free. Make sure you buy the very best quality ingredients you can find as you will definitely taste the difference!

9. Epic Chocolate Stout Cake with Chocolate Bourbon Sour Cream Frosting

As anticipated in our 2018 Trend Predictions blog, boozy bakes featuring a splash of Prosecco or a shot of gin have been popping up all over our Pinterest boards. This chocolate cake is a perfect example with dark stout to counteract the sugar, bringing an extra intense, rich layer of earthy, soul-satisfying flavour. Not to mention the addition of chocolate bourbon sour cream frosting… We’re drooling!

10. White Chocolate Mudcake

Team white chocolate: this one’s for you. A little more subtle than a traditional milk or dark chocolate version, this cake is still dense, rich and indulgent. Don’t be tempted to skip the white chocolate sour cream ganache, it truly is the crowning glory of this recipe. Queen Tip: up your mudcake game by adding 2 tsp of Queen Raspberry Baking Paste to the ganache and garnishing with fresh raspberries.

11. Blackberry Red Wine Chocolate Cake

Combining two of the finest things in life, this red wine chocolate cake has our name all over it! Simply swap out the coffee in a classic recipe for red wine (or blackberry red wine, as this blogger has used) to create a decadently moist cake with subtle notes of fruit shining through.

12. Rich Chocolate Mud Cake

And to finish on a high note, this rich, sinful recipe ticks all the boxes for the ultimate mud cake. It took a little trial and error to get perfect, but we’re confident this will be your new go-to recipe! Better yet, it’s easy to mix up with milk, dark or white chocolate depending on your preference.

So, Queen Bakers – we hope you’re inspired to get your bake on! Have a browse through our new recipes, and be sure to leave a rating and a comment to let us know how you went.

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