Mary Berry Chocolate Cake: Two Recipes Tested Side By Side

If you’ve typed “Mary Berry chocolate cake” into Google and ended up with three slightly different recipes, you’re not imagining it. She has more than one, and they don’t behave the same way in the tin.

The short answer: for a classic two-layer chocolate cake with a glossy ganache and a thin layer of apricot jam, make Mary’s Very Best Chocolate Cake from her Baking Bible. It uses two 20cm sandwich tins, bakes in about 25 to 30 minutes, and the ganache does double duty as the filling and the topping. If you’d rather have a lighter, quicker all-in-one cake in two 17cm tins, there’s a second version further down, and I’ll tell you which one I’d reach for and when.

I baked both back to back on a drizzly weekend when nobody wanted to leave the house and I’d promised the kids a baking afternoon. This is how they turned out, what the reader comments on the original recipe pages suggest is going wrong for some people, and what I’d change next time.

Which Mary Berry chocolate cake recipe are you actually looking at?

Search for her chocolate cake and you’ll find at least three different recipes sharing the same name. The two you’re most likely to land on are the ones I tested.

There’s a third one too: the chocolate and cherry cake from her 2025 book Mary 90, which uses cherry jam and whipped cream. It’s a different sort of bake, so I’ve left it for another day.

One thing that tripped me up while checking the quantities: not every site publishes the Very Best recipe identically. The Happy Foodie, which reproduces the Baking Bible text, lists 275g caster sugar, 50ml milk and plain chocolate with 39 per cent cocoa solids. Lakeland’s version lists 300g sugar, 2 tablespoons of milk, and Bournville for the ganache. Both are working from the same imperial recipe (10oz sugar), so it’s mostly a rounding difference, but it’s worth knowing if you’ve ever followed one site and wondered why your cake looked different from your friend’s. I went with the Baking Bible quantities below.

Mary Berry’s Very Best chocolate cake, step by step

This is the one I’d make first. Mary calls it her favourite chocolate cake, and the ganache is so simple that it feels like cheating.

You’ll need

• 50g cocoa powder, sifted
• 6 tbsp boiling water
• 3 large eggs
• 50ml milk
• 175g self-raising flour
• 1 rounded tsp baking powder
• 100g softened butter
• 275g caster sugar

For the filling and icing

• 3 tbsp apricot jam
• 150g plain chocolate (about 39 per cent cocoa solids)
• 150ml double cream

Tins: two 20cm (8in) deep sandwich tins, greased, with the bases lined with baking parchment.

Method

1. Heat the oven to 180C (160C fan, Gas 4). Grease the tins and line the base of each one with a circle of parchment.
2. Tip the cocoa into a large mixing bowl, add the boiling water and stir to a smooth paste. Add the eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, butter and sugar and beat until you have a smooth, thick batter. An electric whisk makes quick work of it, but a wooden spoon and a bit of patience will get you there too.
3. Divide the mixture evenly between the two tins and level the tops. Get them in the oven as soon as they’re filled.
4. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the cakes are well risen and the tops spring back when you press them lightly. Leave them in the tins for a few minutes, then turn out, peel off the parchment and cool completely on a wire rack. Don’t ice a warm cake.
5. Warm the apricot jam in a very small pan. Brush a thin layer over the base of one cake and the top of the other.
6. For the ganache, break up the chocolate and put it in a heatproof bowl with the cream. Set it over a pan of simmering water for about 10 minutes, stirring now and then, until melted. Take it off the heat and stir until smooth.
7. Leave the ganache to cool until it’s just on the point of setting. It should be thick enough to spread without sliding off. Spread it over the jam on both cakes, sandwich them together and smooth the top with a small palette knife. Keep the cake somewhere cool until you’re ready to serve.

Credit where it’s due: this is Mary Berry’s recipe from Mary Berry’s Baking Bible, and I’ve written the method out in my own words. 

The all-in-one version, and what’s different about it

The second recipe is the one most sites call simply “Mary Berry’s chocolate cake”. It’s the all-in-one method, so there’s no creaming and no worrying about the mixture curdling. You put the eggs, flour, sugar, butter and baking powder into one large bowl and beat until smooth, then add the cocoa, which you’ve mixed with boiling water into a stiff paste a little at a time.

The ingredients are 3 large eggs, 175g self-raising flour, 175g caster sugar, 175g softened butter, 1½ level tsp baking powder, 40g cocoa, 4 tbsp boiling water and 4 tbsp apricot jam, with the same 150ml cream and 150g plain chocolate for the ganache. It goes into two 17cm tins and bakes at the same temperature as the other cake for 20 to 25 minutes. Then you layer jam and ganache twice, so you get a jam and ganache layer in the middle and again on top.

A few things from the GoodtoKnow write-up are worth passing on, because they’re Mary’s own advice. The butter needs to be soft rather than oily. Don’t swap the cocoa for drinking chocolate, because the added sugar makes the cake taste sweet and milky instead of properly chocolatey. And if your sponges tend to crack on top, you’re probably baking them too high in the oven.

Seventeen centimetre tins aren’t exactly standard in a UK kitchen, so if you don’t own them, there’s more on tins and scaling further down.

What my family made of them

This is the bit no recipe page gives you, so here’s how the two cakes got on side by side in my kitchen.

I made the Very Best cake first, in my two 20cm sandwich tins. It took 27 minutes in my fan oven at 160C, and it came out evenly risen with a gentle dome and no cracking. The crumb was soft, moist and close-textured, almost brownie-like round the edges, with a proper dark, grown-up chocolate flavour. Mary says it has a “grown-up” flavour and I’d agree. Even with 275g of sugar it didn’t taste too sweet, because the plain chocolate ganache balances it out.

The all-in-one was cooked second. I don’t own 17cm tins, so I used my 18cm ones and started checking at 18 minutes. They were done at 22. The sponges were noticeably lighter and fluffier, more like a classic sandwich cake, with a milder chocolate flavour and a buttery taste that came through more. Because the layers are thinner and you spread jam and ganache twice, you get a lot more ganache per slice, which my youngest considered a major plus.

My husband took a slice of each, said “the first one” without looking up from his plate, and then went back for a second slice of it. The teenagers were clear that the Very Best was the winner. My youngest preferred the lighter all-in-one with the double layer of ganache, and I can see why if you’re not a fan of really dark chocolate.

My verdict: I’d make the Very Best again for birthdays, dinner parties and any time I want a proper chocolate cake, and I’d keep the all-in-one for a midweek bake when I want something quicker and lighter that the kids will happily polish off.

Why Mary Berry’s chocolate cake goes flat, oily or crumbly

The Happy Foodie page for the Very Best cake has close to 40 comments, and most are glowing, with plenty of people calling it their go-to chocolate cake. But a handful of people have had real disasters. Reading through them, a few patterns stand out. I can’t tell you for certain what went wrong in anyone else’s kitchen, but these are the usual suspects.

It didn’t rise and tasted chewy. The recipe depends on self-raising flour plus baking powder, so check you haven’t picked up plain flour by mistake, and that your baking powder is in date. It’s also worth checking your oven is actually at the temperature it says. A cheap oven thermometer is one of the best things you can buy for baking. Get the mixture into the oven as soon as it’s mixed, too, because the raising agents start working straight away.

It tasted oily. Mary’s advice for the all-in-one method is that the butter must be soft but not oily. If you’ve microwaved it to speed things up and it’s gone shiny and greasy, that could be the cause. Soft enough to leave a dent when you press it is the target.

It cracked or domed too sharply. Her tip is to avoid baking on a shelf that’s too high, because the crust sets too early and splits as the middle keeps rising. I proved this one myself by accident. I put the all-in-one tins on the top shelf, and one sponge came out with a crack across the middle. The Very Best cakes went on the middle shelf and came out smooth.

It was dry. Too much cocoa will dry out the sponge, so use scales and stick to the recipe weights rather than a heaped tablespoon. Resist opening the oven door until the cakes are at least three-quarters of the way through baking, too.

It crumbled when someone doubled the recipe. One commenter doubled everything to make a big cake and it fell apart. That’s my suggestion rather than an official one, but if you need a bigger cake, I’d bake two batches in separate tins, or add a third tin, rather than pouring a double quantity into one deep tin.

My own near miss was the ganache. I got impatient and spread it while it was still warm, and it slid straight down the sides of the first cake and pooled on the plate. I scraped it back into the bowl, left it for another 20 minutes until it had thickened, and it was fine the second time. The cake looked far neater for the wait.

Ganache, jam and other things you can put in the middle

The apricot jam isn’t just for flavour. Mary’s tip is to use it to seal the top of the cake before icing, which stops crumbs getting into the ganache and keeps the finish smooth. If apricot isn’t your thing, raspberry or strawberry will work, and one reader on The Happy Foodie swapped in seedless raspberry jam and loved it. Smooth jam is better than chunky here.

The ganache is the part people worry about, but it’s only cream and chocolate. The one rule is patience. If it’s still warm when you spread it, it runs straight down the sides, as I found out. Leave it until it’s thick and glossy and just starting to set. If you don’t want to use a pan of simmering water, a reader suggests microwaving it at 50 per cent power in short bursts and stirring in between. I’d check it every 15 seconds after the first couple of minutes so it doesn’t catch.

If ganache isn’t your thing, a few other options work well on this sponge:

• Whipped double cream in the middle instead of, or as well as, ganache.
• A chocolate buttercream. 
• Buttercream and fondant for a birthday cake. The Happy Foodie team confirmed the Very Best cake can take both.
• White chocolate curls on top, shaved with a potato peeler.

Tins, doubling, cupcakes and freezing

Smaller or bigger tins. If you only have 17cm tins, the all-in-one recipe is the one made for them. If you’ve only got 18cm tins like mine, it works fine, but start checking a few minutes early. If you have 23cm (9in) tins, The Happy Foodie team says you can keep the Very Best quantities the same, though the layers will be thinner, so check the cakes earlier than the recipe says. I haven’t tried that size myself.

Cupcakes. One reader on the original recipe page says the Very Best mixture works well as cupcakes too. I haven’t tested that one, but it’s on my list.

Four layers. Another reader cut each cake in half to make four layers and said they’d double the topping next time so they could cover the sides. That sounds sensible to me.

Freezing. According to the book, the cake freezes for up to a month, either iced or un-iced. Store it in a freezer-proof round container slightly bigger than the cake, with the cake sitting on the inside of the lid, then seal and label it. To defrost, loosen the lid and leave it at room temperature for about four hours. If you froze it iced, the ganache won’t be quite as shiny afterwards. One commenter bakes in three smaller tins and freezes the spare sponge for later, which is the kind of planning I admire and rarely manage.

What I’d do differently next time

• Make the ganache first. It needs time to cool and thicken, so I’d make it before the cakes go in the oven and have it ready when they’re cold.
• Bake the Very Best a day ahead. The leftover slice the next day was even fudgier and more moist than it was fresh, so it’s a good make-ahead cake for a birthday.
• Use the middle shelf for everything. It’s a small thing, but it stopped the cracking.
• Buy proper 17cm tins if I make the all-in-one often. Or stick with the 20cm Very Best, which is the better cake anyway.
• Try a drop of coffee in the ganache. Plain chocolate and cream are lovely as they are, but I suspect a little coffee would deepen the flavour even further. That’s a guess rather than a test, so treat it as an idea.

If you’ve got a Mary Berry bakes habit like mine, you might also like my Mary Berry carrot cake, Mary Berry Lemon Drizzle Cake, or my tasty Mary Berry Rhubarb Cake.

Mary Berry chocolate cake questions

What size tin does Mary Berry use for her chocolate cake?

It depends on the recipe. The Very Best Chocolate Cake from her Baking Bible uses two 20cm (8in) deep sandwich tins. The all-in-one version published by GoodtoKnow uses two 17cm (7in) deep sandwich tins. Don’t swap the quantities between them without adjusting the bake time.

Can I use butter instead of baking spread in Mary Berry’s chocolate cake?

Yes. The Baking Bible version calls for softened butter. Lakeland’s published version says either soft butter or a baking spread made for cakes. Whichever you use, it needs to be properly soft rather than melted or oily.

Can I use drinking chocolate instead of cocoa?

No. Mary’s advice is not to substitute drinking chocolate, because it contains added sugar and makes the cake taste milky and sweet instead of rich and chocolatey. Use proper cocoa powder.

Can I double Mary Berry’s chocolate cake recipe?

I wouldn’t pour a double batch into one deep tin, since one reader who did so reported the cake crumbled. Make it twice, or bake the double quantity across more tins, so each layer cooks properly.

Can you freeze Mary Berry’s chocolate cake?

Yes. The recipe notes say it can be frozen, iced or un-iced, for up to a month. Thaw it for about four hours at room temperature. If it was frozen iced, the ganache won’t be as shiny as it was fresh.

Why has my Mary Berry chocolate cake cracked?

Most likely the cake was baked too high in the oven, so the crust set before the middle finished rising. Move the tins to the middle shelf and check that your oven temperature is accurate.

 

You can find all of my Mary Berry recipes over here – from sweet bakes to savoury treats, there’s so many to try and enjoy!