@thedianecollective I made @brooki ♬ original sound – thedianecollective
2024 was the year of chocolate cakes for me because I made chocolate cake for everyone’s birthday, including my own.
Not on purpose. It just happened that way.
Today, I’m sharing the scaled-down version of the Brooki Bakehouse chocolate cake I made for my dad using two 4″ round baking pans. I have a small household, so there’s no need for a two-layer 8″ cake — even a 6″ cake is too much.
Most people, if any, use 4″ baking pans, so there aren’t many recipes that specifically cater to that size.
With so few recipes, I’m limited. So, I created the Cake Pan Converter so I am able to test the best chocolate cakes on the Internet with any baking pan I want!
Sure, I could halve a recipe, but I personally think a single-layer cake (if it’s not a sheet pan) is a little dinky.
The Cake Pan Converter works with metric measurements — I know, so un-American. But, you don’t need to wash as many dishes!
I urge you to watch Brooki’s video below for instructions as I will just be sharing the metric measurements for a two-layer 4-inch chocolate cake:
Mini 4″ Brooki Bakehouse Chocolate Cake Recipe
65g AP Flour
70g White Sugar
57g Brown Sugar
25g Dutch Cocoa
3.15g Baking Soda
2.50g Baking Powder
78g Buttermilk (room temperature) — or use Regular Milk with 4g Cream of Tartar
47g Coffee (room temperature)
42g Vegetable Oil
39g Egg (about 3/4 of an Egg) — this is why I recommend a kitchen scale! I also just fry and eat the leftover egg lol
1.30g Salt
- Bake for 18-22 minutes.
How to Freeze Cake
Cake always freezes well so if you want to make this ahead of time and keep your cake moist, this is what I do:
Allow your cake to cool slightly but make sure it’s still warm. Wrap each cake layer in plastic wrap, then freeze immediately!
By the way, I don’t level my cakes at this stage because frozen cake is easier to cut into!
Anyway, you want to wrap warm cake because the steam gets trapped by the plastic wrap and as you defrost your mini Brooki Bakehouse chocolate cakes, there’s no moisture loss, so your cake stays moist — at least that’s the idea lol.
I’ve heard concerns about whether taking the warm cake into a cold freezer will harbor bacteria because the general food safety rule is that you shouldn’t rapidly cool down foods.
However, cake is considered a non-potentially hazardous food meaning it doesn’t harbor and grow bacteria like, let’s say, a casserole would. The freezer is also way too cold whereas a cool refrigerator with a scalding hot soup could be very welcoming to bacteria growth.
For this occasion, I cooled this cake without plastic wrap or freezing and it stayed fabulously soft and delicious!
Mini 4″ Brooki Bakehouse Chocolate Frosting Recipe
58g Butter (room temperature)
31g Powdered Sugar
25g Dutch Cocoa
62g Heavy Cream (warmed)
62g Dark Chocolate Bar (melted)
0.65g Salt
I was not prepared for how amazingly delicious this frosting is! It’s fucking unreal.
While this frosting is too loose to pipe with, it’s perfect for that rustic homemade look. I added sprinkles here because I had them.
Conclusion: My Brooki Bakehouse Chocolate Cake Review
The chocolate cake was very fluffy and rose a lot in the oven! The crumb was very large, so there were lots of air pockets.
Brooke called this chocolate cake as a cloud and I can confirm that it is cloud-like. The chocolate flavor is prominent and coats the mouth beautifully.
If you want something super light and pillow-y rather than dense and decadent, consider this recipe!
As to whether this is the best chocolate cake ever? I’m still on the hunt…
That being said, I’ve found my chocolate frosting.
Holy moly. So insanely rich and decadent. It tastes expensive.
She is the moment.
I will not be looking any further for any other chocolate frosting moving forward. Maybe one to pipe with if someone insists? But, I’d do everything to convince them otherwise.
If you want to make this chocolate cake recipe in a different pan size, download my Cake Pan Converter and have a recipe fit over 25+ baking pans by simply inputting Brooke’s original recipe!