food to glow

Easy Everyday Chocolate Cake – one-bowl, lower sugar and deeply chocolatey. Just add a fork!

I feel the need to clarify the title of this post: this cake is everyday as opposed to birthday. It is the kind of cake to whip up on a whim because you really rather fancy chocolate cake, rather than bake it for a special occasion. No need for anything but the willingness to wait for it to cool enough to cut. No icing, sprinkles, clouds of whipped cream. Just a fork. Maybe some ice cream.

But feel free to drape it in folds of chocolate ganache. Or whap out the palette knife to cover it in this rather unique chocolate frosting. I dusted the cake you see with homemade unrefined icing sugar that I made in my blender. As I rarely need icing sugar (confectioner’s sugar) I make my own rather than buy it. You can do this with any granulated sugar.

Speaking of sugar, I’ve deliberately made it lower sugar than most cakes, but feel free to add a bit more sugar to your taste. By keeping the sugar on the low side I’ve let the subtle umami-ness of the cacao shine through. You can even add sweet miso to amp this effect: it’s really rather nice – and not at all salty or weird.

Another kind of unique thing about this cake is that I recommend using milk kefir. If you make your own milk kefir you will probably have leftovers of it at some point. This cake is a brilliant way to use it up. With a natural tang, milk kefir also creates incredible moistness and soft crumb due to its gentle acidity. If you don’t have milk kefir – and I realise this is a bit niche, so no worries – just use buttermilk or plain yogurt.

And one last thing, I use half spelt flour and half whole oats to give body to the cake.  I just bung the flour, oats and the remaining dry ingredients in my blender to blitz the oats and mix it all up. This combination is one of my favourites for not only its nutritional value – although let’s face it, we aren’t eating cake for its nutritional value! – but its taste too. In almost any cake recipe you can substitute some of the flour with oats or other whole grains to give it added value. You may use a good gluten-free mix instead of the spelt if you wish, as well as gluten-free oats, or even chestnut flour for the whole grain bit.

So, how will you eat this everyday chocolate cake? With frosting? Icing sugar? A big pile of berries? How about alone. Jk. 😉

Need more chocolate cake? How about my 1-Minute, 5-Ingredient Chocolate Mug Cake , Chocolate and Banana Rosemary Cake, Chocolate Chestnut Truffle Cake (it’s amazing!), Chocolate Beetroot Cake, or this (above image) sticky Swedish Chocolate Cake?

**Remember to follow me on Pinterest and, if you make this cake, click on the pin below and leave a photo of your make with a comment telling me what you think, or any awesome changes that you made. Whether on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or of course here on the blog, I love to see what you do with my recipes, and I welcome your comments, tweaks and suggestions.**

Follow my Facebook and Instagram accounts for extra, ultra-simple, complete recipes that don’t appear on the blog. Such as this Smoky Maple Tempeh Breakfast Salad with Vegan Ranch Dressing.

RIPE FOR PINNING!