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How to make devil’s food cake the old-fashioned way by soaking the flour overnight for a melt-in-your-mouth treat for birthdays or other special occasions.
Devil’s food cake is often the birthday goodie my kids choose for me to make when their special day rolls around. Recently though, this recipe for chocolate chip cookie cake is giving it some good competition!
The inherent moistness of devil’s food cake combined with nutrient-loaded buttercream frosting makes for a melt-in-your-mouth experience that your child (and guests) won’t soon forget.
This old-fashioned version varies from modern recipes in that it is soaked in sour raw milk (or yogurt) overnight.
This simple, traditional step greatly improves flavor and moistness, while also significantly enhancing digestibility.
For those new to traditional cooking, soaking flour is one of the three methods used by ancestral cultures to prepare their grains.
The great thing about traditional preparation of grains is that you eat far less because you feel full faster. This is very important when it comes to cake and dessert in general because you won’t easily overeat!
Preparation Tip
The recipe below is for a large, double-layer devil’s food cake to serve many guests at a birthday party.
If you wish to make a single-layer cake only, cut the recipe in half and frost just the top.
Homemade Devils Food Cake (traditional method)
How to make devil's food cake the old-fashioned way by soaking the flour overnight for a melt-in-your-mouth treat for birthdays or other special occasions.
Ingredients
- 4 cups flour freshly ground is best
- 3 cups whole milk yogurt or lightly soured raw milk
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup expeller pressed coconut oil
- 3 cups sucanat unrefined cane sugar
- 1 cup cocoa powder
- 3 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
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Sift the fresh whole grain flour and feed the discarded bran to chickens, ducks or other birds. Removing the bran increases the lightness of the cake considerably without using toxic commercial white flour.
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Mix the sifted fresh flour with the yogurt or soured raw milk, cover, and leave on the counter overnight or for about 8 hours. I usually mix the flour and the milk in the morning and make the cake in the afternoon.
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Blend in the remaining ingredients. Pour the batter into 2 – 9×13 glass baking pans greased with expeller coconut oil, dividing the batter equally between the 2 pans.
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Bake at 350 °F/177 °C for about 30 minutes or until a knife or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Take care not to overbake.
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Cool the cake completely and then remove one cake layer onto a serving platter and ice the top with raw butter frosting.
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Remove the second devil's food cake layer and carefully place on top of the frosted cake layer. Cover the remaining cake with more butter frosting.
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Store devil's food cake for up to 2 days in the microwave which makes the ideal, airtight pastry cabinet! After that, refrigerate any leftovers in a sealed container (there probably won't be any).
Recipe Notes
Substitute 1 cup carob powder and 1 tbsp chocolate extract for the cocoa powder if desired.
Substitute coconut sugar or date syrup for the cane sugar if desired.
**Do not use honey, as baking with honey is not healthy.
Budget-wise tip: Using homemade vanilla extract is much less expensive than buying it.
More Healthy Cake Recipes!
Love making cake using traditional methods and ingredients? Try these other old-fashioned recipes too.
I think I’m gonna give this a try as I grew up on “whacky cake” and love a good moist chocolate cake! I have a question though. You use sucanat in many of your recipes, and suggests substitutions such as coconut sugar and sometimes cane sugar. Do you not use rapadura? I am still figuring out which natural sweeteners work for me for baking and have tried sucanat but it is very strong. My nourishing traditions cookbook recommends rapadura over sucanat but does rapadura not go well in baking? There are so many to choose from compared to good old white and brown sugar! But maybe the term “good” isn’t correct hahaha. Thanks in advance!
Rapadura is a brand name for sucanat. They are the same thing.
Sarah, I made this recipe today along with your butter frosting. I followed your recipe with the only exceptions being that i sprouted my flour prior to soaking and I made cupcakes rather than cake. I am overjoyed with my results! The cake is perfectly moist and the texture is spot on! The butter frosting is delicious. I didn’t add quite as much sucanat as called for. The cupcakes will be perfect for a nourishing birthday party tomorrow. I added a grind of fresh salt on to of the adult cupcakes and it’s now a salted caramel cupcake. Oh, I made 24 cupcakes from this recipe. With the remainder I made pancakes… yeah, that was good too! Thanks again. This recipe is a keeper for sure.
Yay!
This cake turned out fantastic! It was so good! Many others agreed too! I did follow the recipe..including soaking the flour..i soaked mine in yogurt instead of soured milk..I belive this is what made the cake so moist..like brownies 🙂
And with my oven it was almost 40 minutes. Now for the frosting..sucanat sugar which i used was a bit of a strong flavor for my liking but with the cake it was okay. I want to try coconut sugar next time. Also I learned that next time I will be doing a quarter of the recipe for the frosting. So much was wasted..but I do have to say I am not a huge frosting person so it might be different for others.
Other than that..thx for the great recipe sarah and this will be made every year which is funny since my husband and I don’t usually like chocolate cake. But this is a for sure winner!!
Hi Sarah, Or anyone who can help! Have you tried this cake with Einkorn wheat? If you have, could you please tell me what amount of flour did you use? It seems that I always need a lot more Einkorn flour when I use it. I have messed up a pizza and some other bake goods. Any help in how to use this flour would be greatly appreciated.
Einkorn is what sarah recommends using in this recipe..it turned out perfect for me in the measurements.
Great. Thanks everyone. But after 1 it is safe to give him raw cows milk???
Chocolate Coconut Lara Bars taste just like ding dongs but no added sugar.
I made the blonde brownies you posted a week or so ago, yesterday, only instead of butter I used coconut oil, they are delish! Only thing I would do different next time, since I used coconut oil in place of butter, I would use 3/4 C oil instead of a C.
Sarah! Thank you for all your posts and videos. They are amazing. I want to ask you for your advice please. I have a 11 months old and my milk supply is decreasing. What is the best next thing to give him. Raw Cows or goat milk? Should I still be adding lactose and gelatin? I would really appreciate your comments. Thank you so much.
well, I’ve got a some sour (raw) cream and milk left over from Christmas (and it all smells gently sour, not nasty) – so I’m going to remind all the guys (1 x dh + 2 x male teenagers) why they love me so much by baking them this for tea tomorrow! I bet I get lots of brownie points for it. Happy New Year to you all – great site.
Just wanted to share that my son requested vanilla cake for his birthday – followed this recipe, just omitted to cocoa powder and it came out great! I made it with raw whipped cream and blueberries on top – delicious! And several friends asked for the recipe. 🙂