Chocolate Crunch Cake

Chocolate crunch cake is exactly what it sounds like: soft chocolate cake, a glossy layer of ganache, and a craggy chocolate-cornflake topping that shatters a little when you cut into it. It’s part old-school cereal treat, part bakery cake, and part social media fever dream ~ the kind of dessert you keep seeing sliced, scooped, and crunched all over your feed until resistance is useless.

Chocolate crunch cake at a glance

➡ easy one-bowl chocolate snack cake
➡ glossy dark chocolate ganache
➡ crispy Nutella-cornflake topping
➡ viral crunch cake energy, made snack-sized
➡ a little Ferrero Rocher, a little cereal treat, lots of fun

3 layers of chocolate

There are 3 distinct layers in this crunchy chocolate dessert, but the whole thing is not difficult or time consuming to put together.

1. CAKE: It all starts with a perfect one-bowl dark chocolate snack cake. It’s a half recipe of my favorite chocolate layer cake. You can make the cake layer a day ahead if you want to. Keep it loosely covered at room temperature.
2. GANACHE: Topped with a layer of luxe chocolate ganache ~ I make it right in the microwave.
3. CRUNCH: Finish your chocolate crunch cake with a chocolate Nutella cornflake topping (also made quick in the microwave.)

2 ingredients that make chocolate crunch cake viral

It all comes down to 2 things: NUTELLA + CORNFLAKES. I bet you never thought you’d be using both of those in one recipe, but trust me, it just works. Nutella gives the toppings an added depth of flavor, and the cornflakes provide the crunch in chocolate crunch cake.

Some recipes use feuilletine in place of cornflakes. Feuilletine is a French crispy crêpe flake used in pastry for light, crackly crunch. It’s a great upgrade in this chocolate crunch cake. You can buy it online, or make a rough substitute by crushing crispy wafer cookies, Pirouline-type wafers, or very crisp ice cream cones. Not exact, but close enough for a cake topping.

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Chocolate Crunch Cake

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Chocolate crunch cake is my snack-friendly take on the viral dessert: an 8×8 chocolate cake with glossy ganache and a crispy cornflake topping.

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Servings: 12

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Equipment

• 8×8 square baking pan

Ingredients

 

US CustomaryMetric

cake dry ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 6 Tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt

cake wet ingredients

• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup hot coffee

ganache

• 6 Tbsp heavy cream
• 3 ounces dark chocolate chips, or chopped dark chocolate, about a heaping 1/2 cup
• 1 Tbsp Nutella
• pinch sea salt

crunch topping

• 1 1/2 cups cornflakes, lightly crushed
• 1/2 cup Nutella
• 3 Tbsp bittersweet chocolate chips, or chopped bittersweet chocolate
• 1 1/2 tsp butter
• pinch salt
• 1/4 cup chopped toasted hazelnuts, optional

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350F and grease and line an 8×8 baking pan with parchment paper. The paper is optional but allows you to remove the cake for cleaner frosting and serving.

for the cake

• Whisk together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
• In another bowl whisk the buttermilk, oil, egg, and vanilla and mix until combined. Stir in the hot coffee.
• Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until well combined, but don't overmix. The batter will be thin.
• Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 28–32 minutes, checking at 25 minutes. Let cool completely.

for the ganache

• For the ganache, heat the cream until steaming, then pour over the chocolate, salt, and Nutella. Let sit 2–3 minutes, then whisk until smooth. Spread over the cooled cake.

for the crunch topping

• Add the Nutella, bittersweet chocolate, butter, and pinch of salt to a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave in short 15-second bursts, stirring between each, just until melted and smooth.
• Fold in the lightly crushed cornflakes until they’re completely coated. Stir in the toasted hazelnuts, if using.
• Spoon the mixture over the still soft ganache layer and gently spread it out with an offset spatula or the back of a spoon. Don’t press too hard ~ you want to keep some craggy texture. I dolloped it onto the cake in small mounds and then gently nudged it across the surface.
• Let the topping set before slicing. For the cleanest slices, chill the cake briefly, then let it sit at room temperature for a few minutes before serving.

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Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Author: Sue Moran

Keyword: baking, cake, chocolate, chocolate cake, snack cake

Nutritional information is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate only. This information comes from online calculators. Although The View from Great Island attempts to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures are only estimates.

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