The Ochre Bakery Chocolate Buttermilk Cake

An excellent chocolate-y chocolate cake and my go-to celebration cake

A 6-inch chocolate cake from Ochre Bakery

This is a really good, really rich, really fun chocolate cake. I say fun because it is sweet and moist and cakey- it’s a long way from trying to be a flourless chocolate cake (which I love, don’t get me wrong). This is the cake my son always requests for his birthday and one I am always happy to make because it is pretty easy and can serve a lot of people- not only does the recipe make quite a large cake, but a little goes a long way!

To me, this cake is best served without the buttercream, in a single layer with glossy ganache poured over the top- either a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a puddle of runny cream served alongside. However, that is of course the less fun version and if you are going to go all out, you might as well go for the whole shebang.

This recipe makes either a double layer 11 inch cake or a triple layer 8 inch. It also makes excellent cupcakes or a wonderful loaf. As with any cake, the only real variation in all of these sizes is the bake time, which will also vary depending on your oven. A cake that is about an inch thick when you pour the batter into the pan- such as for the layered cakes mentioned above will take about 40 minutes. A deeper cake, where the entire batter in poured into a single large pan, such as a long loaf pan, may take up to an hour and 20 minutes and may require the oven temp being turned down a little mid way through. A cup cake is going to take about 20-25 minutes. In all cases, test the cake is done by inserting a skewer into the center to check that it removes clean. Other factors to tell in a cake is properly cooked is that the cake will pull away from the sides of the pan and when you give it a gentle push in the center, it springs back. Whenever you open the oven while baking a cake be quick so as to not let too much hot air out, and don’t open the oven during the first half of the bake time at all or you will risk your cake sinking in the middle.

I like to implement my nose as a cake tester. The more you bake and pay attention to you senses, especially your sense of smell, the better you will become at knowing when a cake is ready by the smell. When a cake is ready, or almost ready, you will quite simply be able to smell it- that wonderful sweet smell of caramelized sugars from the top, bottom and sides of the cake. Of course you’ll also smell when it has gone too far.

Although this is called a chocolate buttermilk cake, I have often make it using natural yogurt in place of the buttermilk- in this case, thin the yoghurt with a bit of milk to make it a thick pouring consistency.

One more thing to note: this is a big recipe, there’s not way around it, it makes a lot of cake. So, if you don’t need that much cake, you could either try doing to maths to split it in half OR bake it all off and either gift some to your friends and neighbors or double wrap one of the cakes in plastic wrap and pop it in the freezer for when you just might need an emergency chocolate cake.

And one more thing! You can make more, thinner layers just reduce the bake time slightly and double the amount of buttercream.

Chocolate cake on the counter at Ochre Bakery