Desserts · Cakes & loaves

Chocolate cake

Name: Chocolate cake
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 35 min
Total time: 60 min
Yield: 12 servings
Ingredients: 2 cups all-purpose flour; 1 3/4 cups granulated sugar; 3/4 cup cocoa powder; 2 tsp baking powder; 1 1/2 tsp baking soda; 3/4 tsp salt; 2 egg; 1 cup whole milk; 1/2 cup canola oil; 2 tsp vanilla extract; 1 cup, boiling (or hot coffee) water; 3/4 cup butter, softened; 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar; 2/3 cup cocoa powder; 3 tbsp whole milk; 1 tsp vanilla extract

The birthday standard: two deep cocoa layers under fudge frosting, the hot-coffee trick included. One of the most-baked cakes on the internet, scored slice by slice.

Time: 60 min (25 prep + 35 cook)
Servings: 12
Per serving: 515 kcal
Protein: 7 g

Ingredients

Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour250 g
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar350 g
3/4 cup cocoa powder75 g
2 tsp baking powder8 g
1 1/2 tsp baking soda6 g
3/4 tsp salt4 g
2 egg100 g
1 cup whole milk240 g
1/2 cup canola oil100 g
2 tsp vanilla extract8 g
1 cup, boiling (or hot coffee) water240 g

Frosting

3/4 cup butter, softened170 g
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar300 g
2/3 cup cocoa powder60 g
3 tbsp whole milk45 g
1 tsp vanilla extract5 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Whisk the dry cake ingredients, then beat in the eggs, milk, oil and vanilla.
Stir in the boiling water (coffee if you have it — it deepens the chocolate without tasting of coffee). The batter will look alarmingly thin; that's the moist crumb being born.
Divide between two lined 20 cm (8-inch) pans and bake at 175°C for 30–35 minutes. Cool completely — frosting a warm cake is a landslide.
Beat the frosting ingredients until fluffy, fill and frost. A thin crumb coat first, chilled 15 minutes, makes the final coat clean.

Why this score

engineered against fullness

Concentrated sugar, with little protein or fiber to slow it down; dense calories with little protein, volume or fiber to fill you up.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

5% of kcal

16% water

9 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

44%

33%

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 6181 kcal goes into the pot, 1961 g of ingredients comes out as ~1550 g of food → 399 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 399
Protein: (5%); 5 g
Fat: (39%); 18 g
Carbohydrates: (57%); 60 g
of which sugar: 43 g
Fiber: 4 g
Sodium: 336 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

More desserts

Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.