My mother was visiting us and I was lucky enough to have her with me for her birthday after 7 years. Another reason this birthday was very special because this was the first time I was going to bake her a birthday cake. So this cake had to be something very special. She loves chocolate and I wanted to bake a decadent chocolate layer cake to celebrate this special occasion.
I already have an eggless chocolate layer cake in the blog. You may know it as the "I can't believe it's chocolate cake" recipe. It's one of the most tried recipes in the blog with top reviews too. But that chocolate cake has only 2 layers. I wanted to make something big, a multiple chocolate layered cake.
That's when I found a moist chocolate layered cake recipe in a magazine. This cake has 4 layers. Even though it looks like you have to spend a lot of time making it, this is a simple chocolate layer cake recipe. It looked pretty easy and used only 2 eggs, so substitution was not a big issue.
I used homemade applesauce recipe in place of the eggs. Unlike the other cake recipe which uses oil for the fat, this chocolate layered cake calls for butter making it a very moist, rich and delicious cake.
Just one caution though, this one is super duper tasty, so don't blame me if you indulge and gain some pounds.
To make a vegan chocolate layer cake, substitute the butter with vegan butter like Earth Balance and for the buttermilk use non-dairy milk and vinegar.
If you tried this Eggless Chocolate Layer Cake recipe, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below!
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Recipe
Eggless Chocolate Layer Cake
Ingredients
- 2 cups All Purpose Flour
- ¾ cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
- 1 and ½ teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1 and ¼ teaspoon Baking Powder
- ¼ teaspoon Salt
- ¾ cup Unsalted Butter at room temperature
- ¾ cup Granulated Sugar
- ¾ cup Brown Sugar lightly packed
- ½ cup Unsweetened Applesauce
- ½ tablespoon Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1 and ½ cups Buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
Ingredients For Frosting:
- 1 cup Unsalted Butter at room temperature
- 225 grams Unsweetened Chocolate chopped and melted
- 1 tablespoon Vanilla
- ¼ teaspoon Salt
- 6 cups Icing Sugar
- ½ cup Milk
- ¼ cup Water or Milk or Strong Coffee
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325F/160C for 15 minutes. Line two 9 inch round cake pans with parchment paper and grease it lightly with non stick cooking spray.
- Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium sized bowl. Stir until mixed.
- Beat butter with sugars in a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium for about 3 minutes.
- Add the applesauce in two additions, beating well and scraping down sides of bowl after each addition. Mix in the vinegar too. The mixture will look curdled but don't worry.
- Beat in vanilla.
- Reduce speed and beat one third of flour mixture into butter mixture, then add half the buttermilk.
- Repeat additions, scraping down sides until well mixed.
- Divide batter evenly between pans and smooth tops. Tap the pans lightly to burst air pockets if any.
- Bake in center of oven until a tooth pick inserted in center of cakes comes out clean, 25 to 30 min. If using two racks, move the pan from the top rack to the bottom and the vice-versa in about 15 minutes.
- Cool in pans on a rack for 10 minutes.
- Run a knife around inside edge of each pan and then turn cakes out onto rack.
- Remove parchment. Let cool completely, about 1 hour. I actually left it overnight before I could frost the cake.
For Icing:
- Beat butter for icing in a large bowl, using an electric mixer/hand beater on medium, until creamy, 1 min.
- Add melted chocolate, vanilla, salt and 1 cup icing sugar. Beat for 1 minute.
- With mixer on medium-low, add remaining sugar in 3 parts, alternating remaining liquids (milk and coffee) and ending with sugar.
- Beat on medium-high, scraping down sides of bowl as needed, until fluffy and smooth, 1 to 2 minutes.
Frosting the cake:
- Be extremely careful while slicing each cake into half because its very delicate. One of my layers actually split in half and I somehow managed to patch it up and used it as the bottom most layer and covered it with the frosting. I think shrink wrapping the 2 cakes with plastic wrap once it has cooled completely and storing it in the refrigerator for a couple of hours will harden it up a little bit and slicing it into half won't be much of a trouble.
My Notes
Nutrition
(Note: This recipe was updated & republished from the archives)
Daniel says
most of your recipe are in butter. can you use margarine instead of butter.
Madhuram says
Yes you can Daniel.
Surbhi says
Hi,
Can I replace the apple cider vinegar in this recipe with white vinegar?
Madhuram says
Yes you can Surbhi.
Surbhi says
Thanks 🙂
Niva says
Out of curiosity, why does the recipe require unsalted butter? I suspect that it is to make the cake a little healthier than it normally would be, but I would like to be certain.
Madhuram says
Baking recipes always call for unsalted butter because you can adjust/add the quantity of salt to the dry ingredients.
mini says
Hi,
I am planning to bake this chocolate cake for my son's 1 st birthday! I plan to bake in an 11X15 inch pan. Will I have to double this recipe?
Madhuram says
You don't need to Mini. You can use the batter as it is, but it will be a very thin layer cake.
catherine says
Hi just finished making the cake tonight. It is for tomorrow morning, do I store in the fridge or on the counter overnight?
Madhuram says
You can store it on the counter itself.
vaidehi says
Thanks for your reply. I read on some website that if we dilute the frosting and just brush it on the cake it should keep it moist and I did that before doing the frosting. Now I think of it the biggest mistake I did I kept the cake in fridge uncovered so only the top layer is hard but the bottom is soft. We finished eating the cake anyhow by warming it a bit for 10 sec in microwave. My 1 yr old also tasted it. She gave me a tough time while preparing the cake..I made this cake at nights( total 2 nights)
One thing I have lot of frosting leftover! Did u use all of yours in the cake?
I have kept it in freezer so may be I can use it again..
Where did u learn about this egg substitution. Is it in the dummies book?
Madhuram says
The cake should be stored in a covered container. You should get one of those cake carriers which has an air-tight lid. It's available in Walmart too for $10. I think you are talking about crumb coating. That's usually done before doing the actual frosting so that when you do it you don't pull away the cake. It's definitely a good idea to do that first, put the cake in the fridge for an hour or too so that frosting the cake would be much easier. I don't remember if I had frosting leftover. I did learn about egg substitution from a couple of books that I borrowed from the library. But I had to learn it practically by trial and error and in that process I have thrown out a lot of stuff. Now I'm undergoing the same thing with gluten-free and egg-free baking!
vaidehi says
Finally made the cake n it was all good just until I frost it n kept in refrigerator to cool. I baked one day n frosted the other day n let it cool on the rack overnight. It was soft when I cut the layers but after frosting refgerated it for a day n today its like cement.
Why its so hard
I followed everything as per recipe. The toothpuc came out clean.
Why went wrong?
Madhuram says
Hi Vaidhehi, if you serve the cake directly from the fridge it will be hard. You have to put it out for at least 20-30 minutes before serving. Another tip which I find very useful is the one I used in my Eggless Strawberry Cream Cake recipe. Soaking the cakes in sugar syrup before frosting it will keep the cake very moist even when you keep it in the fridge.
vaidehi says
Hi
I baked the cake and now I'm going to frost it but I'm stuck. How to measure 225gm chocolate. I got a bar its 170gm so I have two 170gm bars. Please reply urgent. What are the silver beads on the cake called?
Madhuram says
You can use 1 and 1/2 bars. I found the silver beads in a cake decorating supply store.
Sithara says
i tried this recipe for my lo birthday with gluten free flour and it came out great! The cake was light and fluffy. Thank you so much for posting this recipe.
Madhuram says
That's great to know Sithara. Did you use xanathan gum or a gluten-free baking mix?
Sri says
Hi,
Can you please let me know from where did you get those silver beads on top of the cake. Are they edible or just for decorating purpose?
Madhuram says
They are edible Sri. I got it in a cake decorating supply store here in Canada.
Adriana Jalba says
Hi,
I made a modified version of this cake (I made this for the birthday of my 2 years old and I wanted less chocolate in it). The changes that I made are:
- replace the cocoa with flour
- replace the vanilla with lemon zest
- replace vinegar with fresh lemon jus
- instead of icing sugar for the creme I used regular sugar + " spoons of vanilla pudding, melted together with the milk and chocolate
so basically this became a chocolate-lemon cake, which was delicious
Madhuram says
Chocolate lemon combo sounds interesting!
Vibhuti says
This cake came out awesome I did some changes -
Added 1 Teaspoon - Cinnamon
Replaced Buttermilk with Milk
Added 10 Tablespoon Dark chocolate(Vanleer)
Drop of Chocolate color
The cake was awesome and perfect... i give this Recipe 10 on 10...
Madhuram says
Thanks Vibhuti.
motero says
This is a really good recipe, I made it for my son who does not eat eggs. The cake is moist and fluffy. I made a ganache glaze rather than the frosting.
Madhuram says
Thanks for the feedback, Motero.
Bojana says
This is a really an excellent recipe. I've made it three times so far and it was perfect every single time. Everybody loved it! Thank you!
Madhuram says
You're welcome Bojana.
Vibhuti says
Hi Madhuram,
can i use cake flour instead of all purpose flour?
to make the buttermilk, what should be the ratio of curd (yogurt) and water?
thanks
Madhuram says
Cake flour should work. The buttermilk should look thick like milk cream. So start with some yogurt and little water and add either one to get the desired consistency.
Shar says
Hi Madhuram, Looks like a great cake and eggless too! Just 1 question: do you use the same measuring cup for wet and dry ingredients? Thanks!
Madhuram says
Thanks Shar. For measuring liquid ingredients use the measuring mug and not the cups.
Sauravi says
Hi, I want to make an Eggless super moist chocolate cake with Strawberry icing. I liked your recipe and it seems the cake is very moist.
Can I use Yogurt instead of Applesauce! Will it make any difference in moisture! Also am making 2 9" cakes, but I want to increase the ingredient ratio a bit (Say 4 cup flour). Can you please suggest!
Thanks in Advance.
Athira says
I'm a student of class 10 thanx for the amazing recipe I had never tried baking before it was my first time n my family loved it ...thanx again 🙂
Madhuram says
That's great Athira. Thanks for the feedback.
Simran says
Is there anything I can use to substitute the applesauce?
Madhuram says
You could try pureed tofu or any other pureed fruit including bananas.
Kristen says
Do you think I could use this cake for cake pops?
Thanks!
Kristen
Madhuram says
It should work, Kristen.