I love cake and a layer cake is probably one of my favorite classic desserts. While cake is great, sometimes you don’t want all of that cake lying around right? Or maybe you just need a quick and delicious cake this weekend for Mother’s Day! While many companies make cake mixes proportioned for an 8 inch cake pan, homemade is so much better; plus if you’re making it for mom she’ll appreciate the effort. The good news is King Arthur has remedied this for us with their original cake pan cake which is perfect when you want cake but don’t want to make a huge cake.

This is truly one of the simplest cakes I’ve ever made. You literally whisk together the dry ingredients, then the wet ingredients, then mix them together. That’s it. This recipe lists the espresso powder as optional but I would strongly recommend using it as coffee helps enhance the chocolate flavor. It also may seem weird to put vinegar in a cake recipe but trust the science because it works and you’d never know it when you taste this recipe.

The tips mention you can use milk for a slightly richer cake as opposed to the water and I might try that next time just to see how it changes the taste. Or better yet, they also recommend using cold coffee or 3/4 cup water mixed with 1/4 cup rum which sounds fun as well!

You might notice my icing looks different from theirs and that’s because I made a quick chocolate buttercream. I think if you made the ganache icing instead it actually would be a lot richer, taste amazing, and look prettier so that’s why I rated the taste and visual lower. Regardless of how you frost this pan cake it’ll taste amazing!

Recipe Used: King Arthur