Our Easiest, Throw-It-Together Cakes
When it comes to cake, you don’t have to sacrifice flavor for simplicity. Some of our best cake recipes happen to be dead-simple, one-bowl, no mixer, dump-and-stir affairs—including our richest, most chocolate-y cake and yogurt-based loafs.
Stovetop Chocolate Cake
Stovetop chocolate cake—using the steamed cake method common outside of the U.S.—not only makes cake cooking faster and easier, it solves Chris Kimball’s problem with chocolate cake, which is that it’s often too dry and crumbly. Steaming ensures a moist, bouncy texture. And if you slightly under-steam it, you get a layer of molten chocolate under the surface—fine by me!
Emergency Chocolate Cake
This cake, sometimes called “crazy cake,” was often made during The Great Depression when eggs, butter and chocolate were hard to come by. The omission of all the typical cake ingredients is how it earned its name. Cocoa powder takes the place of melted chocolate and oil subs in for butter. Water is traditional for this cake, but we use coffee to boost the chocolate flavor. The crumb is surprisingly rich and moist in a way that’s reminiscent of devil’s food cake.
Chocolate Bundt Cake with Dark Chocolate Glaze
No mixer? No problem! This rich and chocolate-y cake from Cheryl Day comes together in one bowl. It’s a chocolate lover’s delight—deliciously rich, moist, tender and deeply flavored. It needs no embellishment, but Day goes the extra mile and finishes it with a ganache-like glaze that bolsters the chocolatiness of the cake while giving it an elegant luster.
Swedish “Sticky” Chocolate Cake
Kladdkaka, a popular sweet in Sweden, is a gooey-centered chocolate cake which translates as “sticky cake.” With only seven ingredients and an easy dump-and-stir mixing method, it’s surprisingly elegant and deeply flavored. It tastes great on its own, but it’s even better when topped with tangy whipped cream or sweetened Greek yogurt.
Chocolate Blender Cake
Our chocolate blender cake comes together with only one blender and one cake pan. This brownie-like cake with a thick, rich glaze happens to be gluten-free, replacing flour with whole almonds, blitzed until powdery. A sprinkle of flaky salt makes a simple, elegant garnish.
1-2-3-4 Yogurt Cake
In France, there is a cake so simple, so universal and so loved, it often is the first recipe children are taught. Its popularity is due in part to the ingenuity of the recipe— or rather “no recipe,” recipe: The yogurt container is used to measure all of the ingredients (no need for a proper measuring cup), and it’s a 1-2-3-4 formula, designed to be easily memorized.
The cake has been around for several generations, but took hold when yogurt was commercialized in the first half of the 20th century and sold in tiny jars. It’s a catchy concept, but more than that, it’s a fabulous cake. It’s light, tender and remarkably moist, thanks to the use of oil instead of butter, with the yogurt’s slight tang balancing the sugar.
Yogurt Loaf Cake with Coriander and Orange
We loved the French Yogurt Cake so much, we developed a more adult, fragrant and citrusy version. It’s the same simple cake, with the 1-2-3-4 formula, but we flavor it with ground coriander and orange zest. We toast the coriander to soften its flavor and heighten the aroma. It’s the perfect snacking cake—sturdy and moist, almost like poundcake, but with a tender, softer crumb.
Coconut Cashew Cake (Sanwin Makin)
This Burmese coconut cake is simpler than the Southern variety—and no less coconut-y! It’s our lighter take on a traditional sanwin makin, which we’ve flavored with fragrant ground cardamom. The recipe calls for coarse semolina flour, which we tend to associate with pizza and bread in the U.S., but its faintly-sweet nuttiness is excellent in desserts. Here, we opted for a lighter, springier texture, with shredded coconut and cashews for a nutty, crunchy topping.
Pistachio-Cardamom Loaf Cake
This cake is made with yogurt and olive oil, two ingredients we often employ in baked goods to help them retain a moist, tender crumb. Inspired by Middle Eastern flavors, we incorporated orange, cardamom and pistachios. The ground nuts also provide some richness. Top it with a simple yogurt glaze and chopped pistachios for some zing and a beautiful, green pop of color.
Spanish Almond Cake (Tarta de Santiago)
In this flourless almond cake from Galicia, Spain, a sprinkling of chopped almonds and raw sugar creates a chewy-crisp crust that contrasts wonderfully with the dense, plush crumb. We chose to flavor simply, with a small measure of vanilla and almond extracts; crème fraîche and fresh berries are perfect accompaniments.
Clementine Blender Cake
This Clementine Blender Cake blitzes whole, unpeeled clementines straight into the cake batter. We use the fruit two ways: to produce a fragrant, saffron-orange crumb and to flavor our soaking syrup, which we brush on to the still-warm cake. It’s next-level citrusy brightness, and moist enough to keep for days.
Yellow Blender Cake
This entire recipe comes together in a blender and a bowl. Blitz the wet ingredients quickly in the blender, then gently combine them with the dry. The blending process aerates the eggs and dairy to incorporate them without the use of a mixer. Cake flour has lower protein content than all-purpose, and gives this cake a lighter crumb, but we use a few other tricks for tenderization. Using buttermilk and adding some neutral oil along with the butter both contribute to a moister cake. It’s simple and fast, like an elevated version of a boxed cake mix.
Brazilian-Style Chocolate-Glazed Carrot Cake
This is the opposite of an American-style carrot cake—infused all the way through with natural, carroty sweetness, with all of the flavor in the crumb, without a thick layer of cloyingly sweet cream cheese. Based on Brazilian bolo de cenoura, we liquify the carrots in the blender, rather than shred them, which releases tons of bright, sweet flavor. (The more you rupture the cell walls of a root vegetable, the more sugars and flavorful carbohydrates they release.) Drizzled with chocolate, the flavor is almost like a chocolate-orange cookie.
Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest.
And if you're looking for more Milk Street, check out our livestream cooking classes with our favorite chefs, home cooks and friends for global recipes, cooking methods and more.
Willow Montana
Willow Montana is the Production Manager of Digital Media at Milk Street. Willow spends their days coordinating and planning video shoots, managing schedules and overseeing the execution of digital projects. They studied Baking and Pastry Arts at Johnson and Wales University and worked in restaurants while putting themself through six more years of college. They hold a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in English Literature and a Master’s of Fine Arts in Publishing and Writing. Willow is a firm believer in living a slow, quiet life and making things by hand. When they aren’t following the developers around with a camera at the Milk Street office, they may be found at home shaping loaves of sourdough, caring for dozens of houseplants and, occasionally, out in the wild at a punk rock show.
