Dark Brown Sugar Chocolate Cake, also known as Rick's Favorite Birthday Cake, is a great recipe. For one thing, it employs all the tricks you've heard of for making moist cake. Those "tricks" include using buttermilk, substituting brown sugar for all or part of the white, and incorporating vegetable oil. And don't worry about missing the butter, because it's here too!
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Dark Brown Sugar Chocolate Cake Notes
So who's Rick? It's Rick Bayless, because the original version of this cake came from Rick & Lanie's Excellent Kitchen Adventures, the one Rick Bayless book I do not yet own. Rick Bayless is obviously a master of Mexican cooking, but over the years I've noticed his dessert recipes are top notch. A good example is the Mexican Chocolate Streusel Cake, which is a streusel cake. This one is a more traditional chocolate layer cake which just happens to have dark brown sugar instead of white.
Compared to other cakes this one is not only moist, but surprisingly not-too-sweet even with all the brown sugar. It has a half cup of cocoa powder which is less than some other recipes, but plenty for a cake of this size. Plus there's a pound of chocolate in the frosting, so there's no lack of chocolate.
Chocolate Ganache Frosting
My old photo of the cake slice has a typical American buttercream and some sort of white Ding Dong Cake filling I was experimenting with at the time, but I've since switched to the frosting Rick & Lanie intended, the Chocolate Ganache Frosting. It's actually pretty easy, and works with chocolate or good quality chocolate chips.
Six Inch Cakes
This cake works well in 6-inch pans, so if you want to try a brown sugar chocolate cake but don't need a big one, just make ⅓ of the recipe, divide it between two six inch round pans and bake for about 25 to 28 minutes.
Recipe
Brown Sugar Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour (260 grams) plus more for pan
- ½ cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt (I use 1 scant)
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted (114 grams)
- 2 cups packed dark brown sugar (420 grams)
- 1 cup buttermilk room temperature
- 3 large eggs room temperature
- 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup hot coffee or boiling water
Chocolate Ganache Frosting
- 1 lb bittersweet or semisweet chocolate (448 grams)
- 1 ¼ cup heavy cream (280 grams)
- ⅓ cup corn syrup (110 grams)
- ¼ cup very strong coffee (56 grams)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 9x2 inch round cake pans.
- Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the oil, melted butter and brown sugar. Beat with an electric mixer until well blended, then add the eggs and beat well. Beat in the vanilla.
- By hand or using lowest speed of the mixer, add the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk. Stir until fully blended.
- Pour the hot coffee over the batter and stir until blended.
- Pour batter into pans and bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Let cool in pans for 10 minutes. Turn from pans and cool.
Chocolate Ganache Frosting
- Chop the chocolate and put it in a heatproof bowl, such as the stand mixer bowl.
- In a small saucepan or in the top of a double boiler, combine the cream, corn syrup, and coffee. Heat over medium, stirring often until steaming.
- Pour over the chocolate and stir until chocolate has melted. Chips don't always melt as easily as chopped chocolate, so if using chips you might want to add the chips to the saucepan rather than pour the cream of the chips. Another fix is to just set the bowl in a skillet of simmering water and stir.
- Let cool slightly, then place in refrigerator and stir every 15 minutes until spreadable. How long it takes will depend on the chocolate you used. If using chocolate chips, it usually thickens pretty quickly.
- Use about ¼ of the frosting between the layers. Then spread ½ of what is left on the sides and the rest on the top.
Anna says
Christie, keep me up to date on your quest! I want to hear which one you and your family like best. I guess the reason I like the others is that they were a little bit softer in texture and had an even fuller flavor? Also, I've only made this one once, while I know those to be reliable. This one is still good, though! I need to make it again.
Christie says
My family is on a quest to find our favorite chocolate cake. Your blog is the first I came to for a recipe. Lo and behold, you are reviewing a new recipe. It souncs wonderful and I am curious why you prefer a couple of the others better. If possible, would you explain why you selected the cakes you told Jim you preferred over this one? Thank you!
Sue says
Jim, the chocolate mayonnaise cake Anna linked to is really good. I've made it a number of times to great reviews.
Sonya says
Anything with "brown sugar" in the title catches my attention, and this cake sounds and looks so good! Happy baking!
Jim says
Thanks, Anna! The holidays give me a chance to make them ALL!
Anna says
Jim, that's such a tough question! And by tough, I mean tough for me to give you just one. I can give you my top 3.
This one is my most reliable favorite. I'd choose it over Rick's, to be honest.
https://www.cookiemadness.net/2016/10/halloween-chocolate-layer-cake/
I also really, really, like Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake
https://www.cookiemadness.net/2013/05/chocolate-mayonnaise-cake-with-sour-cream-frosting/
And the one that gets the most compliments from people is this one, though I never make it as a horse cake anymore.
https://www.cookiemadness.net/2006/09/horse-cake/
Another one that was really good but that I need to make again is this one.
https://www.cookiemadness.net/2015/12/chocolate-honey-cake/
Jim says
What is your favorite chocolate cake of all time? This one looks like I need to make it!
Sue says
It looks and sounds really good!