12 Best Chocolate Cake Recipes

While many things say, “I love you,” few things do it quite like baking someone a chocolate cake. Here, 12 ways to express your most heartfelt emotions.

A person holding a plate with a slice of basic chocolate cake on it.
You can have your molten lava cake; you can have your chocolate soufflé; just give me a classic, really, really delicious, moist, loaded-with-frosting chocolate layer cake, and that's all I need.
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A pound of chocolate cake cut into nine squares and drizzled with chocolate ganache.
This square cake is dark and moist, with a fudge-all-the-way-through texture. What else would you expect from an entire pound of chocolate? The cake can be spread with a ganache glaze for even more chocolate richness.
Recipe
A molten chocolate cake on a plate with the filling oozing out and a few pieces of dark chocolate on the side.
These classic molten chocolate cakes (also called chocolate lava cakes) from Jean-Georges Vongerichten are made with flour, sugar, chocolate, egg, and butter. When baked, the cake doesn't cook through, creating a lava flow of chocolate when cut into. If that weren't enough, the batter can be made ahead of time.
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Two vegan chocolate cakes stacked on top of each other.
This vegan chocolate cake recipe is made with cocoa powder, vinegar, soy or almond milk, and all the other usual baking ingredients. No one will know the difference between it and regular chocolate cake. Swear.
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Five chocolate orange cupcakes with swirls of chocolate frosting on top.
These chocolate orange cupcakes are perfectly chocolatey, not too sweet, and topped with a dreamy bittersweet chocolate frosting.
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A chocolate glazed chocolate bundt cake sitting atop a white cake stand with a dish of glaze on the side
This chocolate sour cream Bundt cake is quick and easy to make but complex as hell in taste. And if the cake weren’t enough, on top is a sinful chocolate glazzle–that’s a glaze that’s drizzled.
Recipe
A paleo vanilla cake stacked between two chocolate cakes on a wire rack.
This paleo chocolate cake also happens to be gluten-free and, even more importantly, it tastes magnificent enough to rival any regular chocolate cake. Go ahead. Taste it and see. Better yet, have others taste it but don’t let them know the secret. Bet no one notices.
Recipe
A blackout cake from Ebinger's on a cake stand.
This Brooklyn blackout cake, like the original from Ebinger’s in Brooklyn, is easy and, more importantly, magnificently delicious. Certain to fix your chocolate fix with it’s pudding-like filling, tender crumb coating, and seriously chocolatey frosting.
Recipe
A flourless chocolate cloud cake on a glass cake stand on a white tablecloth
This flourless chocolate cloud cake is a wickedly elegant dessert that’s deceptively easy to make. Just four ingredients–chocolate, eggs, butter, and sugar–come together for a crunchy-on-the-outside, airy-on-the-inside cake.
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A partial slice of red wine chocolate cake on a plate with a fork resting beside the cake.
This red wine chocolate cake owes its rich, chocolatey flavor to dark chocolate and cocoa powder, as well as the creamy dark chocolate glaze that smothers it.
Recipe
A Hershey chocolate cake with swirled chocolate frosting on a white cake stand
This Hershey’s chocolate cake recipe with frosting is an old-fashioned classic American dessert that will never, ever disappoint. Simple and simply the best.
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A layered German chocolate cake with coconut pecan frosting on a platter with a few slices cut from it.
German chocolate cake, with its traditional stack of dark chocolate cake layers smothered with caramel frosting and pecan goodness and coconut, invariably impresses. And it’s surprisingly easy to make.
Recipe

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