Mary Berry Chocolate Cake with Oil Recipe

Mary Berry’s chocolate cake with oil is a moist, dark cocoa sponge made with sunflower oil, golden syrup and milk. Two sponges are split into four layers, then covered in a glossy plain chocolate and butter icing. Allow about 75 minutes, plus time for cooling and setting.

Berry calls this her Death by Chocolate Cake in the Baking Bible (2010), and it reappears in Simple Cakes and her 2023 revised edition. The sponge has no butter at all. In her Ultimate Cake Book (2003), she sums up the appeal: oil cakes “are very easy, and tend to be very moist.”

The detail most people skip is the raising agent. Berry’s 2023 Baking Bible warns that oil cakes “need a little extra rising agent” to prevent heaviness. That’s why this sponge uses bicarbonate of soda and baking powder, and I level every spoonful because too much bicarb tastes soapy.

FAQs

Mary Berry Chocolate Cake with Oil Recipe

Recipe by Pinch Perfect

5.0 from 1 vote

Course: DessertCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy

Servings

8

servings

Prep time

40

minutes

Cooking time

35

minutes

Calories

1095

kcal

Total time

1

hour 

15

minutes

Berry’s most reprinted oil sponge, from the Baking Bible (2010), beaten together in one bowl with a wooden spoon and no creaming. Most of the effort goes into the finish: 450g of melted plain chocolate and butter poured over all four layers.

Ingredients

• For the sponge:

• 275g (10oz) plain flour

• 3 level tablespoons cocoa powder

• 1½ level teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

• 1½ level teaspoons baking powder

• 215g (7½oz) caster sugar

• 3 tablespoons golden syrup

• 3 large eggs, beaten

• 225ml (8fl oz) sunflower oil

• 225ml (8fl oz) milk

• For the icing:

• 450g (1lb) plain chocolate (39 per cent cocoa solids)

• 200g (7oz) unsalted butter

• To finish:

• 50g (2oz) Belgian white chocolate, coarsely grated

• 50g (2oz) plain chocolate, coarsely grated

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Directions

• Preheat: Heat the oven to 160°C/140°C fan/Gas 3 (325°F). Grease two 20cm (8in) deep loose-bottomed cake tins and line the base of each with baking parchment.
• Mix: Sift the flour, cocoa powder, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder into a large bowl, then add the sugar and mix well. Make a well in the centre and add the golden syrup, eggs, oil and milk. Beat well with a wooden spoon until smooth, then pour into the prepared tins.
• Bake and split: Bake for about 35 minutes, until well risen and the tops spring back when lightly pressed with a finger. Cool in the tins for a few minutes, turn out, peel off the parchment and finish cooling on a wire rack. Once cold, cut each cake in half horizontally.
• Make the icing: Break the chocolate into pieces and heat gently in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water for about 10 minutes, just until melted, stirring now and then. Take it off the heat, add the butter and leave it to melt into the chocolate.
• Ice and decorate: Stand the wire rack on a baking tray to catch drips. Sandwich the layers together with icing, pour the rest over the top, and smooth it over the top and sides with a small palette knife. Leave to set, then decorate with the grated plain and white chocolate.

Notes

• Simple Cakes specifies the tins as 4cm (1½in) deep and swaps the grated chocolate for white and plain chocolate “waves”, set over mugs on strips of foil.
• The 2010 edition gives no yield. The serving count of 8 comes from Berry’s 2023 revised Baking Bible.

Can I use olive oil instead of sunflower oil?

No, and Berry is firm on this one. In Simple Cakes she says to use only vegetable, sunflower or nut oil, “not olive oil, which is far too strong in flavour.” Her oil-based carrot cake recipe sticks to sunflower oil too, so one bottle covers both bakes.

What does the golden syrup do in this cake?

Berry doesn’t explain it here, so this is her closest answer. In her Ultimate Cake Book she credits a “moist and sticky texture” to sugary ingredients like golden syrup, though she’s talking about gingerbreads there. Her tip from the same page helps here: stand the tin in hot water first, and those 3 tablespoons slide off the spoon.

How do I split each sponge into two even layers?

Wait until the sponges are completely cold, because Berry says warm cake is “more crumbly and difficult to cut.” In Mary Berry Cooks the Perfect (2014), she marks a guideline around the side with a large serrated knife, then slices along it. Her classic Victoria sponge uses the same 20cm tins, so this is a natural next step.

Why shouldn’t this cake go in the fridge?

Cold dulls the icing, and that glossy finish from step 4 is half the appeal. Berry’s 2010 headnote warns that overheating the icing costs its shine, and adds “for the same reason, don’t store the cake in the fridge.” She says a cool place is fine, so a cake tin or dome in your coolest room works.

Is there a smaller version I can freeze?

Yes: Double Divine Chocolate Cake in Mary Berry at Home uses the same well method with 2 eggs, self-raising flour and 150ml oil. It bakes hotter, at 180°C (160°C fan) for 25 to 30 minutes, under a white chocolate and cream cheese icing. Berry says those sponges freeze un-iced for 3 months, a note missing from Death by Chocolate.

How is this different from her Devil’s Food Cake?

Devil’s Food, the very next recipe in the Baking Bible, is a creamed butter cake rather than an oil one. Berry blends 50g cocoa with water, creams 100g butter with sugar, and bakes it at 180°C (160°C fan) under a marshmallow-style frosting. For another butter-based chocolate sandwich, her malted chocolate cake is the one I’d try next.