Hello! Is there a better way to greet the new year than with lots and lots of chocolate? No? That’s what I thought.
It’s still a pretty lazy cake. I’m calling it brutalist in style. We didn’t have the materials for piping, and I didn’t have the patience for refining anything. But it’s still good.
Disclaimer: This contains a lot of sugar. Like a LOT.
Introduction: New Year Chocolate Cake

There’s really no such thing as a New Year Chocolate Cake. I just happened to make a chocolate cake for New Years’ Eve. That’s it.
I’ve always wanted to make a chocolate cake (the Mary Grace Cafe chocolate truffle and/or chocolate cakes are up there in my favorite desserts of all time). I thought this is the last big occasion (and excuse) that I’ll have in awhile. My family and I have also been stocking cake flour, cake pans and whatever else throughout the quarantine. I finally got to use them!
This is the most basic chocolate cake recipe I could find online, adjusted for our tiny oven and available ingredients.
Ingredients: New Year Chocolate Cake
Ingredients for the cake:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
(finally got to use the expensive Hershey’s one that we bought) - 2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup milk with 1 tbsp white vinegar, let stand for 5 minutes (this is an alternative to 1 cup buttermilk)
- 1 cup warm water
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Ingredients for the frosting:
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 1/2 cup (155 g) cream cheese, softened
- 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- ~5 cups (560 g) powdered sugar
- 1 tbsp milk, as needed
Simple Chocolate Cake Recipe

Prep time: 1 hour
Bake/Cook time: 30 minutes + 15 minutes
- Preheat oven to 175 C. Butter two 9-inch cake pans and dust with flour (remove the excess). In my case, I used one 1-inch pan and one 10-inch pan, then I did a lot of creative cutting afterwards.
- Combine the dry ingredients using a stand mixer on low speed: all-purpose flour, granulated sugar, unsweetened cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
- On medium speed, add and beat the following ingredients until smooth: eggs, buttermilk substitute, water, vegetable oil, vanilla extract. This may take a few minutes.
- Divide cake batter into the pans. Each pan will have approximately 3 cups of the mixture.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.
- Cool on wire rack for 15 minutes then turn out the cakes.
Making the frosting
Disclaimer: The frosting I made turned out to be delicious, but also super textured and grainy. I think it’s the quality of the sugar.
- Beat the softened butter and cream cheese together until fluffy.
- Add and combine the cocoa powder and vanilla extract.
- Beat in the powdered sugar one cup at a time.
- Add milk as needed to get desired texture.
- Frost the cake.
- Enjoy!
I don’t think I’ll ever make the effort to make a cake again, or at the very least, I’ll make a much smaller cake (it took a few days for us to get through the one I made).
Until next time!
❤️ Your resident kitchen gremlin