Eggless Chocolate Chip Cake

Studded with chocolate chips, this Eggless Chocolate Chip Cake ticks all the boxes for the perfect cake!! It is unconventionally soft, light, moist and tender loaf cake recipe that is also made in just one bowl!!

Shhhh.. Do not let anyone know that it is a Whole Wheat Cake recipe..

Because unless you say it by yourself no one would believe..

What is a Perfect Cake?

1. The cake can be sliced to perfect shape without it crumbling down or falling apart.
2. Soft and light interior crumb texture yet a cake-y taste.
3. The add-ons are evenly distributed.
4. Not too sweetened.
5. Stays moist for 2-3 days.

And that is what exactly we are going to learn in this post!!!

How to make Chocolate Chip Cake from scratch.

To make this cake, we would be using a basic vanilla cake recipe.

Who doesn't love a good old fashioned vanilla cake??

I bet you all can eat it fresh warm as it is at any given time right!!

Now imagine biting into the little chocolate bits every now and then - Nirvana!!

Whole Wheat Baking is often defamed to be dense and heavy.

Not really once you understand few key points - so let us quickly take a glance at the ingredients before we get into the step by step instructions.

Key ingredients needed to make the cake:

Flour:

We are using Whole Wheat Flour commonly known as Atta in India.
You can also use All-Purpose Flour or even Cake Flour to make this cake.

Leavening Agents:

Baking powder and Baking soda both are required to make the cake rise.

Baking Soda also helps to keep the cake soft so adding a little goes a long way.

Salt: Enhances the flavour quotient.

Buttermilk:

Now this is one of the key ingredients you need to make the cake soft and moist.

Buttermilk is more acidic in nature than milk so when combined with baking soda helps tenderize gluten (key point to making cakes,pies etc), giving baked goods a softer texture and more body.

How to make Buttermilk at Home?

For 1 cup of buttermilk, take 1 cup of Warm Milk and add 1 tsp of White Vinegar or Lemon Juice.

Mix and let it sit aside for 10 mins to curdle. Then use in recipes.

For this cake recipe I have made my own Buttermilk and hence in the ingredients picture above you can see - Milk and Vinegar.

Instead you can also use Store-Bought Buttermilk. In that case skip the Milk and Vinegar and directly used the store bought one.

Sweetener:

I have used plain white sugar here.

To make the cake more nutritious or if you are simple avoiding refined products in your diet then for this recipe in place of sugar you can also use coconut sugar, brown sugar or even jaggery.

Yogurt:

Another key ingredient to achieve the softness and lightness in any cakes specifically Whole Wheat based ones is the use of Yogurt.

It also plays the same role as buttermilk.

This is the reason you might have seen yogurt being used in Mud Cake recipe too.

Fat:

An enriched batter not only increases the flavour quotient but also makes wheat-based baked goodies palatable.

In today's recipe I have used Oil, you can also use butter too.

Essence:

I have used vanilla essence today. You can also flavour the cake with cinnamon powder or cardamom powder.

A step by step Tutorial:

Step 1: DIY Buttermilk.

To the Warm Milk, add the vinegar (pic 1). Give it a stir (pic 2).

Let it sit aside for 10 mins.

Skip this step if you are using store-bought Buttermilk.

Step 2 - Pre Prep

Preheat your oven to 180°C.

Oil or Butter your cake pan. I am using a spray can here

Add a parchment paper to the base.

This is an important step which ensures that your cake doesn't stick to the cake pan and can be easily demoulded without breaking down.

Add a tbsp of flour on to the sides of the pan. Move it all around so that the pan is coated with a layer of flour.

Set aside.

Step 3 - Preparing the Cake Batter

In a bowl, whisk together the curd and sugar until homogenous around 1-2 minutes (pic 6-8).

Next in goes the Oil and vanilla essence (pic 9 - 10). Combine that too.

Finally add the buttermilk (pic 11) from step 1 and mix everything.

Take 1 tbsp from the measured out whole wheat flour and add to the chocolate chips. Mix. This ensures that the chips do not sink to the bottom of the cake while baking.

With the help of a sieve, sieve all the dry ingredients - Whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt directly on top of the wet ingredients (pic 14 - 17).

Using cut and fold method combine the dry into the wet.

Finally fold the chocolate chips into the cake batter.

Fold everything to get a lump free batter.

Transfer the batter to the prepared cake pan (pic 18).

Feel free to add more chocolate chips on top of the cake (pic 19).

Step 4 - Baking

Bake the cake in the middle rack of the oven which has now been preheated to 180°C for 40-50 mins until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Let the cake sit in the pan itself for another 5 mins.

Then run a knife around the edges, invert the cake on to the wire rack.

If you have added chocolate chips on top then let the cake cool with the right side up or else there would be wire rack marks all over the cake.

Once cooled slice it into 1/2 inch thickness and enjoy!!

How to Serve the Cake?

This cake tastes so good on its own especially when it is fresh and just a bit warm.

That's the way how my daughter gobbled it up.

I like to eat my cake with a cup of tea with a dusting of icing sugar on top.

I could totally imagine myself sitting in my favourite nook of the house, with a book, tea and a slice of this chocolate chip cake.

You can also have black coffee instead if that is your choice.

Breakfast scenario - Black coffee and a slice of the cake with nutella-slatthered on top. So yum!!

Looking for Dessert options??

Topped with a dollop of ice-cream, a swirl of chocolate sauce or caramel sauce or butterscotch sauce or berry sauce (Gosh!! the choices are endless), this chocolate chip cake would surely satiate your dessert cravings immediately!!

Trouble-Shooting common Cake Problems:

My cake rose well in the oven but sink upon cooling?

Often times the sides turn brown quicker than the centre and we think the cake is ready, but the centre still remained uncooked.

And these are the possible reasons for the same:

1. Oven Temperature is off. A very common problem which happens over time. The best thing to do is buy an oven thermometer which is not that expensive and maintain your oven.
2. Use of dark coloured baking pans or glass pans. Dark coloured pans tend to absorb more heat and hence the sides bakes faster than the centre. Whereas glass pans heats up slowly but retains the heat for longer and hence bakes unevenly.

How to fix this?

1. Always use a skewer to test your cake for doneness. It should come out clean.
2. Do not open the oven while the cake is baking.
3. Make sure you invest in some aluminium cake pans. Those are the perfect ones for baking cakes as they conduct proper heat.

My add-ons (chocolate chips in this case) always sink to the bottom.

The main reason for add-ons like chocolate chips, nuts or dried fruits to sink to the bottom is because of its weight.

So as the cake is light and tends to rise up the weight of the add-ons pulls itself down and get settled to the base.

I did a little experiment here to check that.

So I made a cake with regular chocolate chips and another one with mini chocolate chips.

And from the pictures itself, you can say that the mini chocolate chips are dispersed out evenly as compared to the regular ones for obvious reasons of the latter being heavier than the former.

Now you get it right, if you are using add-ons try to chop it down to reduce the weight.

The two things to do:

1. Chop your add-ons to reduce the weight
2. Coat the add-ons with measured out dry flour as this also ensures that they do not settle to the bottom.

My Cake stuck to the pan

Always grease the cake pan, line the base with parchment paper and dust with some flour.

This is to ensure that your cake doesn't stick to the pan and can be easily de-moulded once baked.

All the tips to make the Eggless Chocolate Chip Cake:

1. Always start with room temperature ingredients, prepare your cake pan and also put your oven to pre-heating.
2. Never over-mix the batter. I have talked about this tip in my FREE ebook. You can download it by subscribing to our newsletter.
3. Try to use mini chocolate chips for this recipe if possible.
4. Coat the chocolate chips with flour so that they do not sink to the bottom of the cake.
5. Bake the cake till the skewer comes out clean.

Gluten - Free Chocolate Chip Cake:

To make the gluten free version of this cake simply substitute the wheat flour with a gluten free flour.

Look for one that subs 1:1 for regular flour. Some examples would be:

King Arthur Flour Gluten-Free Measure for Measure Flour
Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free All-Purpose Baking Flour

King Arthur has an amazing recipe for the same.

Ever since I shared this on my Instagram stories my Dm's is flooded with messages from you all.

Seems you guys are so much into baking with wheat flour these days.

Here are some queries that I have curated from there:

• Can I use Maida/ All Purpose Flour instead?

Yes absolutely. You can substitute the wheat flour with any other flour like Maida/APF or even cake flour with no changes to the recipe.

• Can I use a different size cake pan to make this cake?

Yes you can. In place of loaf pan you can also use an 8 inch cake pan or even a bundt pan.

• Will Chocolate chips melt while baking?

Chocolate chips are designed in a manner that they retain their shape will baking. They contain more temperature stable oils and less cocoa butter which makes it ideal for withstanding the high heat and hence do not melt while baking.

This is the predominant reason why I do not recommend it to be used when making chocolate decorations for cake.

You can check our "7 basic chocolate decorations every baker must know" for more details.

I have also talked about it in our post on "How to melt chocolates the right way"

• Can I use chocolate melts in place of chips?

I think from our previous query you might have guessed it. So the answer is NO as these won't retain their shape while baking.

Made using cocoa butter chocolate melts as the name suggests are used for melting, decorating, cooling and re-melting.

However, you can chop up a bar of compound chocolate and use that if you run out of chocolate chips. OR completely skip it to make a plain Whole Wheat Cake.

• Can I substitute APF or Cake Flour for Wheat Flour?

Yes absolutely. In fact you will get a much lighter and softer loaf if you make this recipe using APF.

• Can I use Jaggery or Brown Sugar instead of White Sugar?

Yes you can use either of the two sugars in place of white sugar with no adjustments to the recipe.

I already have the recipe for Whote Wheat and Jaggery Cake commonly called as Atta Cake on the blog, you can refer that too if you like.

• How to make Double Chocolate Chip Cake?

Double Chocolate or Triple Chocolate literally means adding two or three forms of chocolate to the batter respectively.

So to make a double chocolate chip cake you would simply add another chocolate element either in the form of cocoa powder or some white chocolate chips.

Substitute 1/4 cup whole wheat flour with 1/4 cup cocoa powder OR simply use 1/4 cup dark and 1/4 cup white chocolate chips.

• Can I use this cake as the base to make a layered cake using Whole Wheat?

This cake can be used to make a layered cake too.

Just bake it in two 8 inch round tins or three 6 inch round tins.

Then brush with some simple syrup, and fill and frost with either whipped cream or buttercream.

How to Store this Eggless Chocolate Chip Cake?

Simply place it in an airtight container and store on your counter top for 3-4 days or in the fridge for upto a week.

Can this Cake be made ahead of time?

Yes since this cake stays well for 3-4 days at room temperature you can definitely make it ahead of time.

What to do with leftover cake?

Trust me this cake is soft that honestly it won't even last for a day.

However if you have any leftovers, you can use them to make a trifle, ice-box cake or mix it in your ice-cream or simply make cake rusk.

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Conclusion:

Shhh.. No one would ever come to know that you have used whole wheat flour in this recipe in place of All Purpose Flour.

Oh yes!!

Be ready to make a super soft and light jewelled cake - studded with chocolate chips this eggless wholewheat chocolate chip cake would blow your mind with its texture and flavour.

Perfectly sweetened with soft crumbs, this cake is perfect to go with your tea or coffee.

Hope you enjoyed this recipe.

I will see you soon in my next one

Until then

Hugs

Sushma