Chocolate Wasted Cake: How I Got This Fudgy Brownie Cake

This cake is not for the faint of heart! Sinfully fudgy and moist on the inside and recklessly covered in chocolate on the outside, topped with Snickers candy bars, Reese’s Cups, sea salt caramel filled chocolates, dark chocolate ganache, and a semisweet chocolate drizzle. This chocolate wasted cake is basically everything I love about dessert, piled onto one plate, and I regret absolutely nothing.

This cake is not subtle. No siree. It slaps you in the face with more chocolate than you ever knew could be in one cake, from the inside out! Honestly, I think this might be the most extra dessert I’ve ever posted on this blog, and that’s really saying something considering some of the stuff I’ve made over the years.

You can’t see it yet, but the inside of the cake is actually the best part. I’m putting the cart before the horse there though. I think before we get to that, we’d better talk about the outside first. I mean, how could we not??

Why This Chocolate Wasted Cake Is Going Viral

Can we talk about how this style of over-the-top, candy-covered cake just keeps popping up everywhere lately? I’m pretty sure half of you found this recipe because someone on TikTok – make one of these towering chocolate masterpieces and you immediately had to know how. That’s exactly how these things go viral: someone slices into a cake like this, the camera catches all that fudgy, gooey inside, and suddenly everyone’s phone is buzzing with the same video on repeat. I’m not mad about it one bit. If a silly video trend gets more people baking (and eating) cake like this, then I’m all for it, honestly.

Just look at this monstrosity!! Snickers candy bars, Reese’s cups, sea salt caramel filled chocolates, dark chocolate ganache and a semisweet drizzle are all piled high on top with my favorite Guittard milk chocolate chips covering the rest of the cake.

I mean… there just are no words for this level of chocolate-iness. If you’ve ever made my Candy Bar Cheesecake Cake, you already know I have zero chill when it comes to piling candy on top of cake, and this one might just take the cake (pun fully intended).

The Technique Behind All That Chocolate

Let’s talk method for a minute: it may look like one big mess just thrown together, but it actually does require a certain level of technique to get things to stay put. Those chocolate chips on the side are tricky little boogers, and trust me, I learned that the hard way the first time I tried this. Here’s what worked for me:

Add a little more powdered sugar to the remaining frosting after you’ve layered frosting in the middle of the cake. I’ll discuss this more in a second, but the filling frosting is meant to be a little soft, so it doesn’t hold the chocolate chips as well on the outside. You want that outer frosting a bit stiffer so it actually grips onto all that chocolate.

Pile the chocolate chips up the side of the cake and press in — I used plastic gloves, so that I didn’t get chocolate all over my hands. This part is a bit messy, not gonna lie, but it’s also kind of therapeutic? Like making a chocolate chip sandcastle. Go with it.

This step is hard to describe, and it’s not 100% necessary, but I felt like it was helpful — fold parchment paper into a long strip about the same height as the cake. Wrap the strip around the cake like a tube, and gently tie a piece of bakers string around it to hold it in place. This allows you to do a little more pressing through the parchment paper without making a mess, and it secures all the chocolate chips onto the cake while the frosting does a little bit of hardening (not like hard hard, but just the little bit that powdered sugar causes in frosting). Keep the parchment on there until ready to serve.

What Makes The Inside So Ridiculously Moist

Ok, so let’s talk about the inside of this cake! SO GOOD! It’s my very favorite chocolate cake recipe that starts with a cake mix and is made incredibly moist by adding pudding and sour cream. I know, I know, doctoring up a cake mix feels like cheating, but if you’ve tried my doctored up cake mix trick before, you know it works like absolute magic every single time.

Add to that my very favorite fudgy chocolate frosting, which I’ve thinned ever so slightly by adding a little less powdered sugar than the recipe calls for. This really contributes to a further moistening of the cake, so that it literally just melts in your mouth. We are talking full on tender crumb, dense but not heavy, the kind of slice that makes you close your eyes for a second after the first bite.

As good as the outside of the cake is (and how could it not be?!), the inside is really my favorite part of this whole thing. It’s really pretty incredible, and I think you are going to just die over it. I literally can’t even when I think about how fudgy this gets after it sits overnight in the fridge.

I mean, just look at this!

Topping Ideas If You Want To Switch It Up

By the way… you can use any chocolate candy you would like on the top. I personally think M&Ms and Oreos would be amazing, or even crushed up s’mores cookie bars for a fun summer twist. But I have to say, I die over the ooey, gooey caramel that I used on this cake. I used Ghirardelli sea salt caramel filled chocolate, and I thought the caramel was the perfect thing to break up the chocolate a little bit. And it’s just visually so great as well.

If you really want to lean into the chaos, you could even drizzle on some leftover marshmallow sauce for an extra gooey layer, or swap the frosting in the middle for a scoop of Oreo butter icing if you’re feeling fancy. The beauty of this cake is that it’s basically a blank canvas for whatever chocolate treats are sitting in your pantry right now. Got a bag of leftover Halloween candy? Toss it on. Half a jar of caramel sauce? That’s going on too. This is not a recipe that punishes improvisation — it practically begs for it.

Tips For Serving And Storing Your Cake

Because this cake is so rich, I like to slice it pretty thin — think more like a fudgy brownie slice than a big ol’ wedge. It’s incredibly filling, and a little goes a very long way. I promise nobody is going to feel shortchanged with a smaller piece once they see (and taste) just how dense and chocolatey it is.

As far as storage goes, keep this one in the fridge, loosely covered, and let it come to room temperature for about twenty minutes before serving so the frosting softens back up a little. It also freezes beautifully if you want to make it ahead for a party or birthday — just leave the loose toppings off until you’re ready to serve so they don’t get weird and soggy in the freezer.

This cake definitely takes a little bit of time and effort, but it’s so worth it! It’s the kind of dessert that makes people stop mid-conversation at a party because they simply have to ask what it is. Enjoy 🙂

Want to comment on this cake? Visit me on Instagram and let me know what you think!

More Chocolate Recipes You’ll Love

Chocoholic?? Here are lots more chocolate recipes that you’ll love! If this chocolate wasted cake didn’t quite satisfy your sweet tooth (is that even possible??), try my Grandma’s Chocolate Trifle or my Nutella Mousse Cake next. Both are just as indulgent, and both have that same “I can’t stop eating this” quality that I think we’re all looking for in a dessert, honestly.

Oreo Stuffed Brownie Batter Cookies

The Best Doctored Up Cake Mix

Chocolate Truffle Cookies

Homemade Chocolate Cream Pie

Chili’s Chocolate Molten Lava Cake

Best Ever Chocolate Frosting

Chocolate Wasted Cake

Yield:
8-12 slices

Prep Time:
1 hour

Cook Time:
30 minutes

This cake is not for the faint of heart! Sinfully fudgy and moist on the inside and recklessly covered in chocolate on the outside, topped with Snickers candy bars, Reese’s Cups, sea salt caramel filled chocolates, dark chocolate ganache, and a semisweet chocolate drizzle.

Instructions

Layer the chocolate frosting in between the layers of cake. Cover and chill for 30 minutes to an hour. This makes the cake easier to frost on the outside and decorate (otherwise, the layers will slip around when you put so much pressure on the cake by pressing on the chocolate chips).

Add additional powdered sugar to the remaining frosting (see notes) and frost the outside of the cake. It doesn’t have to look perfect, you’ll be covering it up!

Press the chocolate chips into the sides of the cake, covering completely (read post for a more detail method on doing this).

Chop the candy and pile on top of the cake.

Drizzle or pipe the ganache along the edges and over top. Drizzle the melted semisweet chocolate over top.

Notes

*Omit 1/4 cup of the powdered sugar called for in the recipe. Spread the “thinned” frosting in between the layers of the cake. Then add a couple of tablespoons of the powdered sugar to the remaining frosting to spread on the outside of the cake.

**I used a dark chocolate ganache for this cake instead of the semisweet used in the ganache recipe I linked to. If you use a dark chocolate, you’ll need to make the ganache over low heat on the stovetop instead of in the microwave like the recipe calls for. This will prevent burning and seizing.