Today is International Chocolate Cake Day

There are awareness days for just about anything these days.

Marketers love them. It’s a great way of flogging their products to millions of us every day. But some are just for fun.

We love them at Larkfleet Homes, especially ones that have something to do with food.


That’s why we thought we’d share the news with you that today – 27 January – is International Chocolate Cake Day.

If you’re like us you’re probably close to breaking those diet related New Year’s resolutions. Indulge yourself with some chocolate cake.

So, where does chocolate and chocolate cake come from?

Chocolate use originated with the Mayans and the Aztecs. Chocolate was brought to Europe in the 16th Century by returning Spanish Conquistadors. Spanish monks refined the bitter cacao by adding sugar to sweeten it. The secret was taken to France by a Spanish maid and the craze for chocolate spread across Europe.

In 18th century London drinking chocolate was the 'in thing', replacing coffee as the drink of choice among the London elite.

Up until the 19th century chocolate was only available as drink, created by grinding cocoa pods into a liquor and adding sugar and spices. A Dutchman, Conrad van Houten, developed the chocolate and a process of removing the fat from chocolate and adding potash to make it digestible.

As soon as chocolate could be solidified, industrial chocolate production quickly followed with firms like Cadbury, Fry’s and Terry’s setting up factories in the UK, most famously in Birmingham and York.

Chocolate cake as we know it today, with chocolate added to the cake batter, began to be baked in the late 1800s. Rich chocolate cakes became more widespread in the 1940s, particularly in the US.

There are many different varieties of chocolate cake available today. For a lush chocolate cake recipe, you could do worse than this one from Queen of Bakers Mary Berry.

Enjoy!