Spelt Flour Chocolate Fudge Cake

This spelt flour chocolate fudge cake is rich, moist, and deeply chocolatey. Made with Greek yoghurt and white spelt flour for a soft, tender crumb, without any heaviness. Topped with sweet chocolate fudge frosting. The method is simple: just melt, mix, and bake. It’s the kind of recipe that doesn’t rely on fancy ingredients or complicated steps, yet delivers consistently delicious results.

Perfect for birthdays or any time you’re after a classic chocolate cake with a little extra depth, thanks to the subtle magic of spelt.

Perhaps my best chocolate fudge cake, ever?

I’ve baked a lot of chocolate cakes. Coconut chocolate cakes, no refined sugar chocolate cakes, white chocolate cakes, and even those quick ones that come together in a single bowl on a tired Tuesday evening. I’ve made Swedish kladdkaka more times than I can count.

But this chocolate fudge cake? After first baking it for my son’s birthday, it is the one I always come back to. I think it may have officially become my favourite. It’s a mash-up of some of my favourite recipes from other bloggers, brought together with my own little tweaks to get it just right: rich, moist, and deeply satisfying without being too sweet.

Birthday cake traditions (even for teenagers)

A couple of weeks ago, my youngest turned 16. I’m not quite sure how we got here already. One of my boys is now legally an adult and the other not far behind. However, despite their galloping ages, some traditions stick, and one of them is this: they always get to choose their birthday cake.

Over the years, we’ve had our share of variety. There was the towering princess cake with its delicate green marzipan shell and surprise raspberry layer, and the year of the full-blown chocolate overload cake—two tiers, frosted edges, and enough chocolate to put us all in a mild coma. It was always my job to make the cake, each one more outlandish than the last, as if I had to outdo myself every year. But as they’ve grown older, I’ve started to take a step back and just go with whatever they want. And more often than not, simple seems to win. No fuss, no fireworks, just something they genuinely love.

Even with all the options out there, my youngest is loyal to one thing: chocolate fudge cake. Every. Single. Time. And honestly, I can’t blame him. There’s something deeply nostalgic about a proper chocolate fudge cake. It’s the kind of cake you want to eat with a spoon straight from the fridge. Dense but tender, sweet but not cloying, and above all, unapologetically chocolatey. It hits the spot every time.

The cake I meant to make (and the reality)

Although having a repertoire of several different fudge cake recipes under my belt, this year, I had a completely different cake in mind. Something decadent and dramatic, topped off with the glossy, delicious-looking frosting from Betty Crocker that had caught my eye in various places. I could already picture it: the perfect finish to what was sure to be a showstopper. Except, as it turns out, I didn’t have half the ingredients I needed for the frosting. No dark chocolate. No icing sugar. No buttermilk. And yes, I discovered all this after I’d already started prepping.

So, there I was, standing in my kitchen, staring at the shelf where my dark chocolate always lives, an ingredient I always make sure to have on hand, wondering what to do next. And then, like anyone in my shoes, I panicked, shed a few tears, and frantically searched for some kind of salvation.

The chocolate cake recipe that saved the day

The salvation came in the form of a simple and lush-looking chocolate fudge cake recipe from The Stay at Home Chef. It was exactly the kind of straightforward method I needed: melt, mix, and bake. It was very similar to my original fudge cake recipe, but I couldn’t resist giving it a try. I mean, can a person ever have too many chocolate fudge cake recipes?

I usually love to tweak recipes to make them completely my own. However,  this time I made just a few minor adjustments:

• I halved the quantities to make a 6-inch cake, perfect for smaller celebrations.

• Swapped the regular flour for white spelt flour.

• Used Greek yogurt instead of buttermilk (because honestly, I never have buttermilk on hand).

And It worked. It really worked. The cake turned out perfectly moist, rich, and deeply chocolatey, exactly what I was looking for.

Why this chocolate fudge cake recipe works so well

Here’s why I think this cake turned out so well, and why I’ll be making it again:

• It’s truly fuss-free. Everything gets mixed by hand in just a couple of bowls.

• It holds together beautifully, even when layered and frosted.

• The crumb is soft and tight, almost like a bakery-style chocolate loaf but more tender.

• It works with substitutions. No buttermilk? Use yoghurt. No dark chocolate? A mix of cocoa and milk chocolate will still get you there.

And it’s honestly just fun to make. I love a complicated baking project, but there’s something wonderful about a reliable, low-effort cake that turns out well every time.

Baking with spelt flour: can you taste the difference?

If you’re new to baking with spelt flour, don’t worry; you won’t taste anything unexpected. This recipe uses white spelt flour, which is incredibly mild in flavour and behaves much like regular plain flour. Most people wouldn’t even guess it’s spelt. There’s no noticeable difference in taste—just a soft, moist texture that gives the cake a little extra something.

That’s why I turn to spelt flour for baking so often. It’s reliable, easy to work with, and brings a tenderness to cakes that’s hard to describe but easy to love. It also tends to be gentler on digestion, which makes it a good alternative for some people, even if you’re not avoiding wheat.

Curious to learn more about how to bake with spelt? I’ve covered everything from types of spelt to substitutions and much more in The Beginner’s Guide to Spelt Flour.

The perfect fudgy frosting

The frosting came from Sugar, Spun, Run. While I’m at it, their pizza dough recipe is also my go-to: simple and reliable.

Anyway, back to the frosting, I’m usually someone who finds traditional American-style buttercreams a bit too sweet, and I’m always tweaking them. Whether it’s cutting the sugar or adding cream cheese or Greek yoghurt to balance it out. But this time, I didn’t change a thing. It was perfect as is, soft, rich, and smooth, and exactly what the cake needed. 

This frosting is made with just four ingredients: dark chocolate, butter, milk, and icing sugar. The dark chocolate brings a rich, deep cocoa flavour, perfectly balanced by the butter’s smoothness. The milk gives it just the right amount of creaminess, while the icing sugar adds that sweet, melt-in-your-mouth texture. It was so simple yet exactly what the cake needed.

And the best part? No tweaks were necessary. It was perfect as is: soft, rich, and smooth enough to spread without tearing the crumb. Oh, and surprisingly enough, the frosting was not too sweet, despite the obscene amount of sugar!

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do. And if you’d like more cakes made with spelt flour,  check out my 31 spectacular spelt recipes.

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Spelt Flour Chocolate Fudge Cake (Adaptable)

Ingredients

Cake:

• butter (for greasing)
• 240g (2 cups) spelt flour (see note 1)
• 320g (1½ cups) granulated sugar
• 80g (¾ cup) cocoa powder
• ½ tablespoon baking soda
• ¾ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 100ml (3½ oz) Greek yoghurt (see note 2)
• 80ml (¼ cup + 1 tbsp) milk (see note 2)
• 60ml (¼ cup) vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 200ml (⅚ cup) hot water
• 1 tablespoon instant coffee (see note 3)

Frosting:

• 100g (4 oz) dark chocolate
• 75g (⅓ cup) butter (chopped into small pieces)
• 118ml (½ cup) milk
• 550g (4½ cups) icing sugar

Decoration:

• Chocolate shavings and gold decorations (optional)

Instructions

Cake:

• Pre-heat the oven to 175°C (350℉). Grease two 7" / 18cm pans (I also lined the bottoms with baking paper).
• Using a food processor or whisk, mix the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, together until combined.
• Add the eggs, Greek yoghurt, milk, oil, and vanilla.
• Mix the hot water and coffee together and add to the mixture.
• Beat on a medium speed until smooth. This should take just a couple of minutes.
• Divide the batter equally between the two pans, and then bake for around 35-40 minutes (start checking at around the 30 minute mark). The cake is ready when an inserted skewer comes out clean.
• Cool for around 15 minutes in the pans, then turn out onto a wire rack and allow to cool completely.

Frosting:

• Break up the chocolate and add to a pan with the chopped butter and milk.
• Slowly, with a low heat, melt the ingredients together, stirring constantly. When everything is combined, remove from the heat.
• Add the icing sugar and whisk together until nice and smooth. Set to one side until it reaches the required thickness.

Assembly:

• Spread around ⅓ of the frosting over the bottom of one of the cakes. Top with the other cake, and spread the remaining frosting over the top and the sides. I didn't do anything fancy with my frosting, but used a knife to create a pattern and topped with some gold sprinkles and chocolate shavings.

Notes

 

I have converted grams to cups/ounces/tablespoons using online converters. Although I have no reason to believe they are inaccurate, please be aware that I have not made this recipe with imperial measurements.

1. You can do a straight swap with regular flour in place of spelt.
2. I didn't have access to buttermilk, but if you do, simply omit the Greek yoghurt and use 180ml (¾ cup) of buttermilk.
3. Coffee greatly enhances the cocoa in the cake. However, if you do not want to use coffee, simply omit it from the recipe.

 

Related posts:

Nutella Brownie Cake with a Nutella Cream Cheese Frosting Princesstårta: Swedish Princess Cake Chocolate Overload Cake with Nutella Cream Cheese Frosting One Layer Spelt Chocolate Fudge Cake with Maltesers Dark Chocolate Kladdkaka (sticky cake)