Mini Chocolate Cake (Small Batch Bakes)

If you are looking for a deliciously chocolatey cake, but you only need to serve a small amount of people, this mini chocolate cake is perfect. Made with a delicious cocoa powder chocolate sponge using the egg weighing method, sandwiched and covered with a rich chocolate buttercream and white chocolate and hazelnut spread. It’s small, but packed with flavour.

Notes from The Patisserie

This mini four inch chocolate cake might only be very small, but it certainly doesn’t feel like it. Ideally, I would say a small-batch bake serves 2-6 people, and even then the servings for this cake are still plenty generous.

With four layers of chocolate sponge, plenty of dark chocolate buttercream and a gorgeous whiter chocolate and hazelnut drip it’s just as impressive as a larger celebration cake, but far fewer ingredients.

I adore making mini cakes, and my mini vanilla cake was SUCH a success I thought I would finally post the chocolate version. They are perfect for smaller celebrations, birthdays, anniversaries or simply when you want a fancy little cake but not loads of leftovers. And let’s be honest, there is something adorable about a cake this size.

Ingredient Notes and Tips

As this cake is baked into two four inch sized cake tins you definitely don’t use loads of ingredients, but this simple sponge still follows an easy egg weighing method to ensure a consistent bake.

Find the full recipe in the recipe card below:

• Eggs – As the cake is so small, I used two medium eggs. I weigh these in their shells (mine were 119g) and then I matched the weight of the rest of the ingredients to this.
• Butter – I would recommend a room temperature unsalted block butter or a baking spread for the cake itself – both work really well.
• Sugar – I tend to use light brown soft sugar in a chocolate sponge, but you can use white caster sugar, or golden caster sugar easily.
• Flour – I use self raising flour as it is readily available in the UK. If you do not have access to this, you can swap it to plain flour + 1.5tsp baking powder.
• Cocoa – You want to aim for at least 20-25g of cocoa powder in your bake. I used 24g and 95g of self raising flour as I found it an even split for the flavour I wanted.
• Vanilla – optional, but a delicious addition. Feel free to swap to orange, mint, or coffee!

If your eggs weigh a little more or a little less than mine, just evenly split the difference between extra or less flour and cocoa. For example, 115g of egg (93g flour, 22g cocoa). 121g of egg (96g of flour, 25g cocoa)

A delicious decoration

When it comes to decoration like this, I have simply done what I wanted to, but you can definitely just use this recipe as a base and swap it up to different flavours and ideas.

• Butter – I would always recommend using a block unsalted butter and not a margarine or baking spread for buttercream as they are too soft
• Icing sugar – also known as powdered sugar, it’s best for simple frostings
• Chocolate – I used dark chocolate as I love the flavour, and it also isn’t ‘too dark‘ once all of the sugar has been added in as well. You can swap it for milk chocolate, or white chocolate though.

I used some of my homemade white chocolate hazelnut spread, but you can use a shop bought version, or swap to a different spread such as biscoff, Nutella, pistachio spread etc. I melt it down slightly in the microwave to make it easier to fill a cake, and for the drip.

I would recommend using a cake turntable to achieve a smooth finish on a cake like this, but using a metal cake scraper is also very useful. I love using a 2d closed star piping tip for decoration, and a small piping bag to make the drip easier.

Storage and Freezing

While this cute 4-inch mini chocolate cake tastes best on the day it is decorated, the generous buttercream shell locks in moisture, keeping the cake soft and fresh at room temperature for 3 to 4 days inside a cake dome or airtight container.

If you want to prepare the sponges in advance, the plain un-iced cake layers are custom-built for long-term freezing; simply wrap the completely cooled sponges individually in clingfilm and freeze for 3+ months.

You can also freeze the whole cake for 3+ months and then thaw in a fridge overnight