This Lunch Lady Chocolate Butter Cake is a soft and buttery chocolate cake topped with sweet chocolate frosting. It’s easy to make and goes perfectly with a cold glass of milk!
Chocolate Butter Bundt Cake Recipe
I have no idea why this cake is called Lunch Lady Cake. I’ve seen recipes all over the internets, claiming to be lunch lady brownies, lunch lady peanut butter bars, lunch lady cookies… I’m not sure what the lunch ladies served at your school, but delicious treats were not part of my school lunch.
But since I’m all about jumping on the bandwagon, I decided to make a cake that was in the same vein as the lunch lady brownies of pinterest fame. This is a sweet, chocolate cake that is buttery, dotted with chocolate chips and topped with a pourable, chocolate icing. AND this cake is even better the next day. Trust me on that!
What You’ll Need
Here’s what you’ll need to make old fashioned lunch lady cake. Be sure to scroll down to the recipe card for specific amounts.
For the Cake
- Butter – Let it come to room temperature
- Granulated sugar
- Vanilla
- Eggs
- Cocoa powder – I like the cocoa powder from Trader Joes
- Kosher salt
- Baking powder
- Baking soda
- Buttermilk – If you don’t have buttermilk, you can make a quick buttermilk substitute!
- Cake flour – I don’t recommend using all purpose flour. Cake flour will help you get that tender, moist crumb on your cake.
- Chocolate chips – I like semi sweet, but you can use your favorite variety!
For the Chocolate Icing
- Butter
- Cocoa powder
- Milk – Any kind of milk will do. You can also use heavy cream.
- Powdered sugar
How to Make Lunch Lady Chocolate Cake
The cake batter is very simple. And delicious. I have to try my hardest to keep my fingers out of this one… Here’s how to make it.
Prep your tools: Preheat the oven to 325°F. Coat a 10- inch bundt pan liberally with shortening and dust with powdered sugar. Set aside.
Cream the butter and sugar. In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment mix the butter and sugar together for 2 minutes, until light and fluffy.
Add in the vanilla and eggs and mix until smooth.
Add in the cocoa powder, salt, baking powder and baking soda and mix until incorporated, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary.
Add in the flour and buttermilk in alternating portions, beginning and ending with the flour, until just combined.
Finally stir in the chocolate chips.
Bake. Spread the batter into the prepared bundt pan and bake for 60-70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Cool. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 20-30 minutes and then invert the pan onto a cake plate.
How to Make the Pourable Chocolate Frosting
This is probably one of the easiest chocolate frostings ever.
In a medium saucepan combine butter, cocoa powder and milk over medium heat, whisking until melted together. Remove from heat and whisk in powdered sugar.
Pour icing over the cake and allow icing to set before serving.
Yup, that’s it! You can eat this cake immediately…but also know this cake gets even better if it sits overnight!
Tips for Success
- What kind of cocoa to use? You could definitely use a dark cocoa powder in this one if you prefer a more intense chocolate flavor. But the beauty of this cake is that it’s more of a milk chocolate…milder, and sweeter.
- Be sure to heavily grease your bundt pan. I took the trick that you guys have taught me and I used shortening and then dusted my pan with powdered sugar instead of flour. Y’all are smart.
- Split the chocolate chips. Another trick that works great is to only mix half of the chocolate chips into the batter and then sprinkle the rest on top. This will help prevent them from all sinking to the bottom of the cake, and distributing them evenly. I don’t have that problem with this batter, but it definitely doesn’t hurt to do it that way!
- Add icing to the top, or not. You can skip this step and just dust with powdered sugar as well! But the pourable icing is my fave AND it also hides any imperfections…love that!
Enjoy! And don’t forget to use the hashtag #cookiesandcups if you make any of my recipes and post them on your social media!
Print
Lunch Lady Chocolate Butter Cake
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
- Yield: 12 servings 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Description
This Lunch Lady Chocolate Butter Cake is a soft and buttery chocolate cake topped with sweet chocolate frosting. It’s easy to make and goes perfectly with a cold glass of milk!
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cup butter (3 sticks), room temperature
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 5 eggs
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 3 cups cake flour
- 2 cups chocolate chips
Icing
- 1/2 cup butter
- 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
- 3 tablespoons milk
- 3 cups powdered sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325°F. Coat a 10- inch bundt pan liberally with shortening and dust with powdered sugar. Set aside.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment mix the butter and sugar together for 2 minutes, until light and fluffy. Add in the vanilla and eggs and mix until smooth. Add in the cocoa powder, salt, baking powder and baking soda and mix until incorporated, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary.
- Add in the flour and buttermilk in alternating portions, beginning and ending with the flour, until just combined.
- Finally stir in the chocolate chips.
- Spread the batter into the prepared bundt pan and bake for 60-70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 20-30 minutes and then invert the pan onto a cake plate.
Icing
- In a medium saucepan combine butter, cocoa powder and milk over medium heat, whisking until melted together. Remove from heat and whisk in powdered sugar.
- Pour icing over the cake and allow icing to set before serving.
Nutrition
- Serving Size:
- Calories: 884
- Sugar: 85.5 g
- Sodium: 306.3 mg
- Fat: 44.9 g
- Carbohydrates: 118.4 g
- Protein: 10 g
- Cholesterol: 161.2 mg
When you made this cake recipe, did you use mini chocolate chips?
my cake was very dry – what could have been the reason? it looked like yours but was dry.
hey! made this! so good. oh, and its called lunch lady because the original recipe for those Pinterest brownies (I know exactly what you’re talking about! :)) came from a woman who said her family friend got them from a woman who worked as a lunch lady.
I don’t like chocolate chips in cake, do you think it would be okay if I left them out? Thanks!
sure!
I have made the lunch lady brownies. Growing up we had just 1 lady who could cook and make it taste good.
Call is whatever you want, this is the cake of my dreams!
I told my mom about this recipe. She said it’s called “Lunch Lady”, because that was Paula Deen’s….catering business, I want to say? I don’t remember right now. A little disappointed with this recipe–the cake stuck to the pan a little. it was much too gooey, and my icing didn’t look like yours, pictures. BUT!! I will make it again, and make some adjustments!
I love your cake !! This is a really pretty !! Very nice settings and the food looks delicious !!
Looks great. Anywhere I can get the measurements in grams?
Any recipe with a pound of butter in it HAS to be good! 🙂 Can’t wait to try it.