Decadent Chocolate Walnut Cake

This decadent chocolate walnut cake is the perfect recipe to try for any special occasion or simply when you’re in the mood to bake up a delicious dessert. 

Crunchy walnuts and sinfully decadent chocolate come together in a soft, fluffy cake that is totally worth your kitchen time and effort. 

Whether you’re hosting a nice holiday get-together or are just looking to get your hands dirty in the kitchen, this is one recipe you need to try. 

After this recipe, I usually have some walnuts left, and I put them to use to make these walnut date balls! 

Insanely Delicious Chocolate Cake with Walnuts

Ingredients For This Chocolate Walnut Cake Recipe

Cake: You’ll need a simple mix of ingredients including flour, baking soda, sugar, butter, and oil for the moisture, some vinegar, milk and salt, cocoa powder for that chocolate flavor, and some eggs. 

Filling: To make the filling for the chocolate walnut cake, use nut butter, cream cheese, some heavy cream, powdered sugar, and chopped walnuts for texture.

Glaze: For that luscious glaze, use cocoa powder, sugar, water, oil, and some walnuts. 

***** Check the printable recipe card below for the exact amounts of the ingredients needed for this cake.

How to Make This Chocolate Walnut Cake

1. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl.
2. Add in the wet ingredients for the cake mixture and combine. 
3. Pour into a greased baking dish (or lined with parchment paper). 
4. Bake, cool down, cover in cling wrap and refrigerate. 
5. Prepare the filling by combining all the filling ingredients together. 
6. Remove from the refrigerator, slice in half, spread the filling on the bottom half, and cover with the top portion of the cake. If you’re hesitant about slicing the cake in half, this is a perfect way to do it.
7. Add all the glaze ingredients into a saucepan and bring to a boil. 
8. Remove from heat, cool down for a few minutes, and drizzle the glaze on the prepared cake. 
9. Top with chopped nuts and serve! 

****SaltyPot Tip: Look below for all the exact ingredient amounts, recipe directions, and notes in the printable recipe card below.

Tips & Variations for this Chocolate Walnut Cake Recipe 

• To bring a delicious coffee flavor into the cake, you can rehydrate some instant coffee powder with a spoon of water, and add it to the cake mix with the other wet ingredients. 
• To echo that coffee flavor, you can add some instant coffee powder to the glaze as well. 
• If you don’t have walnuts or just want to try something different, you can use any other nuts too! Almonds, hazelnuts, and pecans are all great choices. 
• If you don’t want to use a glaze to cover the cake, you could enjoy it as is, or just use some store-bought chocolate frosting instead. (Be sure to whip the store-bought frosting to lighten it up a bit.) Don’t forget to top it with a generous sprinkle of lightly toasted crushed walnuts too. 

How to Serve the Chocolate Walnut Cake

Just like my Slow Cooker Cherry Chocolate Cake, this decadent and moist chocolate walnut cake can be enjoyed on its own as an indulgent dessert experience, or with a cup of tea or coffee. 

You can also make it a part of your holiday get-together feast a dessert table along with a nice Cinnamon Roll Apple Cake. 

Storage Ideas & Suggestions

If you have any leftover cake, you can transfer it to an airtight container and refrigerate it for 4-5 days. 

If you want to prep the cake in advance, you can do that too! Simply prepare the cake, wrap it up in cling wrap, and refrigerate for 2-3 days, until you’re ready to assemble it with the filling and the glaze. 

Just remember to bring it out of the fridge for a few hours before you assemble, to enjoy the best taste and texture of the cake. 

I don’t recommend freezing this cake in its finished form. You can certainly make the cake ahead of time, cool it, and freeze it, unglazed and unfilled, for up to 1 month. To thaw, leave it in the fridge overnight, or lightly covered on the counter for an hour.

Questions You Might Have

1. Can I use a mixture of nuts for this cake?
   Absolutely you can. A mixture of nuts would be delicious for this cake. I recommend that when chopping up the nuts, they are all chopped roughly to the same size.
2. Can I use salted and roasted nuts?
   Yes, not a problem. In fact, roasted nuts will have a deeper, nutty flavor that would pair wonderfully with the chocolate in the cake.
3. I want to make more than one cake at a time. Can I double the cake batter?
   Honestly, when it comes to baking, I would put in the extra effort into making the batter from scratch twice instead of doubling the ingredients. Baking is a science and all the ingredients play into one another and disrupting the proportions might give you a wonky couple of cakes in the end.

Did You Make These Chocolate Cake Recipe?

Did you make these homemade chocolate walnuts cake? I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments below, and please don’t forget to leave a star rating on the recipe card! Thank you for stopping by The Salty Pot, and I hope you have a fantastic day!