Two-tier Rustic Chocolate Cake

This is my favorite chocolate cake recipe. It’s so fudgy and delicious and best served as a two-tier cake! … but you can also make it into one bigger cake, a three-tier cake, or into cupcakes.

The Ingredients

Wet

  • 4 eggs

  • 1 cup filtered water (or milk of choice; you can also use orange juice if you want a hint of orange flavor… so good)

  • 3/4 cup coconut oil (melted and cooled)

Dry

  • 3 cups (packed) almond flour

  • 1/4 cup coconut flour

  • 1 cup coconut sugar

  • 3/4 cup cacao powder or cocoa powder

  • 1 tsp salt

  • 2 teaspoons baking soda + 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

For the frosting

  • 2 cans of coconut cream (chilled overnight in the fridge)

  • 2 tsp vanilla extract

  • 3-5 tbsp maple syrup (to taste)

  • pinch of salt

  • optional: if your coconut cream is very liquidy (some are thick the whole can through, others are more runny) you may need 2-4 tbsp of arrowroot powder to thicken it into a frosting consistency.

  • optional: 1-2 tbsp cacao powder if you want the frosting to be chocolate instead of vanilla.

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350F

  2. Mix all the dry ingredients in a big bowl, then add the wet ingredients and mix again until smooth.

  3. Pour your cake mix into your chosen cake pan (oiled with coconut oil) and bake according to the size of that pan and how hot your oven runs. For my two-tiered 8x8 cake (in photos), it’s about 30-35 mins. Ideally, keep an eye on the cake after 25 minutes, and it’s finished when the top is no longer shiny, slightly firm to the touch, and you will notice the sides start to crack a little bit.

  4. Remove from oven and cool completely (first on the counter, then in the fridge). This is important because otherwise, the icing will melt!

  5. For the icing, add all ingredients into a blender and blend for 30-60 seconds. To remove the cream from the cans, make sure to handle the cold cream gently, opening the can without shaking it and scooping out the cream (discard the water). If you have a hand mixer, this works even better to whip the frosting, but not necessary. You might have to add some tapioca starch if the coconut cream you get is on the thinner side. Add in 1 tbsp at a time! Note: for all chocolate frosting, add in the cacao. You can also make it vanilla by omitting the cacao, then split the icing into two and use the vanilla for the middle layer, and then add cacao and mix the second half to have chocolate outside/ vanilla inside.

  6. When the cake is fully cooled, ice the middle, add the second layer, and ice the top.

  7. Coconut cream melts at room temp, so return your cake into the fridge until its ready to serve!

The cake honestly gets better every day in the fridge so if you can, make it an entire day ahead of when you want to serve it!

I’ve made this cake so many times with so many variations! You can add fresh fruit flowers, bake them into cupcakes, or into a 3-tier cake!