Name: Three Ingredient Chocolate Cake with Icing
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 20 min
Ingredients: 4 cups crispy chocolate cookies, 1 (10 oz. bag or box); 1 tablespoon baking powder; 1 ½ cups whole milk; Powdered or icing sugar; 1 tablespoon milk; Stir until thick but smooth.

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Get ready to fall in love with this Three Ingredient Chocolate Cake with Icing! It’s rich decadent and so delicious and super easy to make!

There are lots of ways to get a quick cake made, but not all of them are good ways. I know, sometimes it doesn’t matter. But what I have is a hack for a three-ingredient chocolate cake that will send your head spinning.

Yes. Three ingredient cake. Three ingredient cake with icing that is, Because we love icing on our cakes! This cake is easy to make, requires practically nothing, and in the end (not very long either), you will have a real chocolate cake.

No, this is not a recipe for a mug cake. I’ll admit, I’ve dabbled with mug cakes. It’s not like a regular cake, but it gets the job done when you need a really fast chocolate fix.

No, this real cake recipe really only uses three ingredients and it really bakes in about 20 minutes. You can make it in a silicone mold or in a regular cake pan and it comes out terrific!

How to Make Three Ingredient Chocolate Cake

My three ingredient chocolate cake recipe is simple, but to understand how simple, we need to look at the traditional chocolate cake baking process.

Normally, when you bake a cake from scratch, you need 10+ ingredients. That’s a lot to round up, but you also have to measure. Measuring is my least favorite thing about baking. It’s so precise which is nerve racking. If you are off on one ingredient, you have to do this crazy balancing act as you go around trying to adjust everything.

That’s only the start of your woes. Not that cake baking is the hardest thing ever, but it can make a big mess in the kitchen. The possibility for human error and the amount of flour, cocoa and who knows what else flying all over the place is enough to make you wonder why you didn’t just buy the cake mix at the store instead of trying to make your own.

That’s a valid question. After all, cake mix does solve a lot of the problems that come with making your own cake. However, there is a better way. Cake mix is not simple enough. Not when it comes to this three-ingredient chocolate cake, which (if you haven’t guessed yet) does not include cake mix. That’s right there is no cake mix in this cake! Bottom line is you need to make this three ingredient cake with icing!

A fun recipe for three ingredient cake with icing!

Traditional chocolate cake involves wet and dry ingredients, so even when you blend all the dry ingredients together, you still need to mix in the wet until you achieve the right consistency. That is another potential problem. More often than not, there is not enough liquid in the wet ingredients, and stirring everything to the right texture can be very rough.

Our three ingredient chocolate cake recipe has the traditional cake baking method beat there, too. Not only does it beat out the cake mix and the whole spectrum of dry cake mix ingredients, but it also uses more liquid, making it far easier to mix than you ever would have thought possible.

Any chocolate cake batter is going to wind up the same way. In the oven. That is unless it’s a mug cake, but really, this chocolate cake hack is so much better than a microwave single-serve cup of cake.

Here’s the kicker. After wrestling with the ingredients and battling to stir everything together, the cooking time for the cake to fully bake is a 30-minute minimum wait! My three ingredient chocolate cake recipe gets cooked up in 2/3 of the time!

PIN IT!!

Lets recap. Our three ingredient chocolate cake recipe uses only three ingredients, to replace the armfuls of dry messy ingredients you’d normally have. It’s even better than cake mix, it’s easier to combine with wet ingredients, and it cooks in less time, even though you still use an oven and not a microwave.

Easy Three Ingredient Chocolate Cake with Icing!

The greatest Chocolate Cake Hack Ever

Are you ready to learn what our three ingredients are and how to make this amazing chocolate cake hack? All you have to do is combine these three simple ingredients and pour them into a well-greased pan or silicon mold. When it comes out, your chocolate cake will come out looking just like you’d imagined.

If you want to make multiple layers of this three-ingredient chocolate cake, you will need to be careful about removing the cake from the pan to cool. The best way to ensure your cake comes out easily is by lining the pan with parchment paper and greasing it well.

The homemade icing that this recipe goes best with won’t work for a layered cake. If you decide to go the layered route you will need to frost and fill the cake in some other way. Make sure you let the cake cool completely before you proceed to the frosting stage.

Homemade Icing

The best way to prepare this three ingredient cake with with icing is in a bundt pan with homemade icing on top.

This recipe also includes directions for how to make a delicious homemade icing! This will top the three-ingredient chocolate cake with icing. You will be making a thick glaze for added texture and flavor. This smooth glaze goes on best when you allow your cake to freeze for about 30-45 minutes. The frosting can be a nice opportunity to change things up by using a flavored coffee creamer if you like.

If you don’t prefer icing your cake, try drizzling it with hot fudge instead. You can coat the cake in dark chocolate fudge and then freeze it until the fudge solidifies. Top with whipped cream and cherries!

How to Store Three Ingredient Chocolate Cake with Icing

This chocolate cake is best frozen until ready to use. Make sure the cake is well wrapped, preferably in plastic and parchment paper. You don’t want to let any air or moisture in to ruin the consistency of the cake.

You can keep it in the refrigerator too if you plan on finishing it within a few days instead of a few months. The best solution is a little bit of both. Cut the cake into pieces and only refrigerate what you plan to use right away. Then, freeze the rest for another time.

Of course, if you are making the three-ingredient chocolate cake for a party, then it will most likely not last through the event. Whatever doesn’t get eaten though, needs to go into the proper storage. Don’t leave it out at room temperature.

Slice of cake with white frosting and sprinkles

My Three Ingredients to Make a Quick and Easy Chocolate Cake

Using only three ingredients I can make a delicious chocolate cake and you would never know I cut so many corners. It’s not a cake mix or a mug cake. It’s even better. This recipe calls for baking powder, milk, and one additional ingredient. By combining these three things together in a mold, you can bake up a delicious chocolate cake in record time. What could make baking a cake that easy?

And the Secret Ingredient Is…

Finally, we come to the last of my three ingredients for this three ingredient cake with icing. This is the key to making the whole thing work. This does the job of a cake mix while also reducing the cooking time. Plus it’s easier to combine with the milk for an easy cake batter that can’t be beat.

This wonder ingredient is crispy chocolate cookies. One 10 oz. bag of crispy chocolate cookies has everything you need to make a delicious chocolate cake. We use chocolate Teddy Grahams. Any crispy chocolate chocolate cookie will do. Try it out for yourself. This hack works.

The cookies have everything you need for a cake mix and they are already baked. They have to be crispy because the dryness of the cookie helps it to pulverize into the consistency of cake mix when you blend it with the baking powder in the food processor. Once you rehydrate everything with the milk you have a reconstituted cake batter that works like a charm. Only better! Because this does not taste like a cake mix.

Try this hack out for yourself, and even experiment with other cookie flavors. Let me know how it goes. I would love to see this done with gingersnaps for a shortcut spiced cake.

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