I can’t believe I’m saying this but this eggless chocolate cake is probably one of the best chocolate cakes I’ve ever had (even better than regular ones that do have eggs!).
It’s super soft and moist, sturdy for layer cakes, and has an intense chocolate flavour. Topped with a delicious chocolate cream cheese frosting, trust me, you will not be disappointed!
How to Make Eggless Chocolate Cake
This cake recipe is similar to a hot milk cake, except there’s no eggs! It’s adapted from my eggless vanilla cake recipe, and comes together in a few quick steps – no mixer required! As always, full quantities of all ingredients and step by step method can be found in the recipe card at the end of the blog post 🙂
Begin by preheating your oven to 150 °C (300°F) with the fan on (see note 1 on recipe card below if you don’t have a fan function) and grease and/or line two 8 inch cake tins (I use my homemade cake release).
Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Mix together using a whisk and set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, combine yoghurt, sugar, vanilla and baking soda. Mix until well combined and set aside.
In a microwave safe bowl or jug, combine butter, oil, milk and instant coffee powder. Heat in the microwave (you can do this over a stovetop if you prefer), until the butter is fully melted and the mixture is hot to the touch.
Once hot, add in cocoa powder and stir until dissolved. It’s okay if there are a few little lumps.
By this point your yoghurt/baking soda mixture should be slightly frothy. To it add in half of the heated milk mixture and using a whisk mix until combined. Then add in half of your pre-sifted dry ingredients and gently mix with the whisk until just combined. Then add in the remaining milk mixture and gently whisk until just combined. Finish by adding the remaining dry ingredients and gently whisk until just combined. Do not overmix.
Distribute the batter evenly into the two 8 inch cake tins, and then give the cake tins a light bang on the counter to remove any large air bubbles.
Bake for 45 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let the cakes cool in the cake tins for about 20 minutes, before turning them out onto a wire rack to completely cool. Because these cakes have a slight dome, don’t let them cool upside down as the layers may break while they’re still warm.
Assembly
While the cakes are cooling, prepare the chocolate cream cheese frosting.
Once cakes are cooled, level the tops with a serrated knife so that the cake layers are flat.
Place one cake layer onto your cake stand/serving platter and place a generous amount of frosting on top. Smooth it out with an offset spatula.
Place your next cake layer on top and cover the top and sides with more frosting. You can use a cake scraper to smooth out the sides.
I like to finish off with some piping on the top. I usually use a 1M star piping tip and pipe cupcake swirls around the top edges of the cake. Once done, slice and enjoy!
Moist Eggless Chocolate Cake
Print Pin VideoIMPORTANT: For accuracy, I would recommend using the gram measurements provided, as those are the exact quantities I use. Cup measurements are given as estimates (based on US cup measurements) to make it easier for those who do not have a scale.
Ingredients
- 2½ cups (330 g) flour - regular, all purpose
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- ¾ cup (185 g) yoghurt - Greek yoghurt, room temperature
- 2 cups (400 g) white granulated sugar
- 1¼ tbsp vanilla essence/extract
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ½ cup (113 g) unsalted butter
- ⅔ cup (130 g) unflavoured vegetable oil - I use canola
- 1½ cups (360 g) milk
- 2 tsps instant coffee powder
- ¾ cup (77 g) cocoa powder - Dutch processed preferred
Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 150 °C (300°F) with the fan on (see note 1 if you don't have a fan function) and grease and/or line two 8 inch cake tins (I use my homemade cake release).
- Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Mix together using a whisk and set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine yoghurt, sugar, vanilla and baking soda. Mix until well combined and set aside.
- In a microwave safe bowl or jug, combine butter, oil, milk and instant coffee powder. Heat in the microwave (you can do this over a stovetop if you prefer), until the butter is fully melted and the mixture is hot to the touch.
- Once hot, add in cocoa powder and stir until dissolved. It's okay if there are a few little lumps.
- By this point your yoghurt/baking soda mixture should be slightly frothy. To it add in half of the heated milk mixture and using a whisk mix until combined. Then add in half of your pre-sifted dry ingredients and gently mix with the whisk until just combined. Then add in the remaining milk mixture and gently whisk until just combined. Finish by adding the remaining dry ingredients and gently whisk until just combined. Do not overmix.
- Distribute the batter evenly into the two 8 inch cake tins, and then give the cake tins a light bang on the counter to remove any large air bubbles.
- Bake for 45 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let the cakes cool in the cake tins for about 20 minutes, before turning them out onto a wire rack to completely cool. Because these cakes have a slight dome, don't let them cool upside down as the layers may break while they're still warm.
Assembly
- While the cakes are cooling, prepare the chocolate cream cheese frosting.
- Once cakes are cooled, level the tops with a serrated knife so that the cake layers are flat.
- Place one cake layer onto your cake stand/serving platter and place a generous amount of frosting on top. Smooth it out with an offset spatula.
- Place your next cake layer on top and cover the top and sides with more frosting. You can use a cake scraper to smooth out the sides.
- I like to finish off with some piping on the top. I usually use a 1M star piping tip and pipe cupcake swirls around the top edges of the cake. Once done, slice and enjoy!
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information are estimates only as they are automatically calculated by a third party application. Actual values may differ based on brands and types of products used.
214 Comments
Hi MK,
I’ve tried a couple baking recipes off YouTube before but none worked as perfectly as yours! I baked my birthday cake with a layer of the eggless chocolate and eggless vanilla cake and it turned out fantastic, thank you so much! Since I am a beginner, I have a couple questions:
1. The eggless vanilla recipe uses regular yoghurt vs the chocolate one uses greek, what difference does it bring to use regular as compared to Greek?
2. My cakes took 1+ hour to bake for some reason, is this something to do with my oven? My oven has two settings: Bake and Conv Bake and I used the second setting OR was it because I used stainless steel pans?
3. The cakes were soft, but not as moist as I would like them to be, what should I do to make them more moist?
Thank you so much!
Hi Manisha 🙂
So glad you enjoyed the recipes! To answer your questions:
1) Greek yoghurt has more fat so will make for a moister cake, but sometimes I try to be a bit careful with the balance as my cakes do tend to have a higher fat ratio and too much fat can result in a dense cake.
2) The cakes shouldn’t take that long to bake – I wonder if perhaps the cake tins you used were smaller? If the batter is higher up the tin it can take longer for cakes to bake (as they’re thicker in height). Stainless steel pans shouldnt be an issue and the oven setting shouldn’t be an issue as long as the correct temperature was used (in this case 150C convection (fan bake)). If the ‘Conv Bake’ setting you have actually means conventional (so not fan assisted), then you will need to increase the baking temperature to 170C otherwise the cakes will take longer to bake.
3) Because the cakes took so long to bake, its likely that parts of the cake were overbaked, resulting in a less moist cake. I would recommend checking the oven temp and cake pan size as you want the cake layers to bake up faster than they did and this should help 🙂
Hope that helps for next time!
Hi do you use granulated everyday sugar or caster sugar
Hi Courtney! I use regular granulated sugar 🙂
Hope that helps and hope you enjoy the recipe!
I want to make a tiered cake with a 10” base and 6” top, how can I modify the ingredients and baking time? Can I substitute coffee with something?
Hi Isha! 🙂
For a 10 inch two layer cake you’ll want to make double the recipe and for a 6 inch two layer cake half the recipe should be enough. You may need to reduce the cook time for the 6 inch cake layers, but everything else will stay the same. You can’t really taste the coffee in the cake, it just helps to amplify the chocolate flavor, but you can simply omit it if you prefer 🙂
Hope that helps and hope you enjoy the recipe!
Thanks for sharing eggless cake recipe. Can I use this in a bundt cake pan? I have one 10 cups and one 6 cups from Nordic ware. Also can I substitute Greek yogurt with thick homemade yogurt (whole milk)?
You’re welcome Nidhu! 🙂
I haven’t tried this recipe in a bundt pan myself so I’m not too sure sorry! I think there should be enough batter for a 10-12 cup bundt pan, I’m just not sure if it would rise well as a tall cake. I think homemade yoghurt should be okay, as long as it’s not too thick otherwise it might make the cake a bit dense. Would love to hear how it goes if you decide to try in the bundt pan 🙂
Hi good morning can I use this to make cupcakes?
How much will I get
Hi Niki! Yes you can totally turn these into cupcakes, you just want to reduce the cook time to around the 18 min mark. You should get around 24 cupcakes with 1x this recipe 🙂
Hiya! Just wondering if the coffee power is essential? I’m wanting to make this for a 4 year old whos allergic to eggs but not sure if she’d enjoy the taste of coffee haha I’m sure it wouldn’t be a strong flavour but just wondering if it would be ok to make it without? Thank you!
Hi Lilly!
You can totally leave out the coffee if you prefer – you can’t really taste it (it’s more to enhance the chocolate flavor), but it’ll still be great without it 🙂
Hope you all enjoy the recipe 😀
Can I use this recipe for stacking a 4 tier cake
Hi Shubhi! 🙂
Yes that should be fine – hope you enjoy the recipe!
Hello
Can I use buttermilk instead of the yoghurt? And what quantity would I use?
Thanks
Hi Angelique! 🙂
I haven’t tried with buttermilk myself so I’m not too sure how it would turn out or what quantity to use sorry! If you still wanted to give it a go I would just substitute the same amount of yogurt with buttermilk. Would love to hear how it goes if you decide to try it out 🙂
Hi MK,
Thanks for the wonderful recipe. May i know if i want to bake this in 7” pans, how can i adjust the recipe?
Hi Inma! 🙂
You’re so welcome – so glad you love the recipe 😀
For 7 inch pans ideally you want to use about 0.75x the recipe which can be a bit hard to calculate, so what I would recommend is making 1x the recipe and either making two slightly thicker 7 inch cake layers or distributing the batter between two 7 inch cake tins and leaving a little batter left over which you can use to make a couple of cupcakes on the side 🙂
Kindly note you will likely need to adjust the cook time when using different sized pans from the original recipe.
Hope that helps and hope you enjoy the recipe! 🙂
I just made it & it came out perfect, Can I measure half of the ingredients for 1 batch of cake?thanks in advance.
So so happy to hear you loved it Ashwini 😀
Yes you can half the recipe for one 8 inch cake or two 6 inch cakes 🙂