Bruce's Chocolate Cake
A towering, moist chocolate layer cake under thick, glossy chocolate icing. The entire cake Bruce Bogtrotter is forced to eat in front of the whole school in Matilda.
- prep
- 30 min
- cook
- 40 min
- total
- 1 h 10 min
- serves
- 14
- level
- medium
In Matilda (1996), the tyrannical headmistress Miss Trunchbull forces a boy named Bruce Bogtrotter to eat an entire, enormous chocolate cake alone in front of the whole school as punishment, and the other children end up cheering him on until he actually finishes every last bite.
The real version doesn't need to be quite that enormous, but it should still be built tall and iced thick and glossy, since the sheer, almost punishing size of the cake is really the whole point of the scene.
Part of our 40 famous movie foods list.
method
Preheat the oven to 180°C (355°F), and grease and line two or three round cake tins.
Beat the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, then beat in the eggs one at a time.
Mix the flour, cocoa, baking powder and baking soda together.
Fold the dry ingredients into the butter mixture alternately with the buttermilk, then stir in the hot water and vanilla until the batter is smooth and fairly thin.
Divide between the tins, and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Cool completely.
For the icing, heat the cream until just steaming, then pour over the chopped chocolate and butter. Let sit for 2 minutes, then stir until smooth and glossy. Cool until thick enough to spread, stirring occasionally.
Stack the cooled cake layers, spreading icing thickly between each layer and generously over the top and sides. Build it tall.
Serve in generous, towering slices.
chef's tips
- Build this one genuinely tall and thick with icing; the cake Bruce faces in Matilda (1996) is enormous on purpose, meant to look like an impossible, punishing amount for one person to finish.
- Hot water added to the batter is what keeps this chocolate cake extra moist rather than dense, a common trick in American-style chocolate cakes.
- The ganache icing should be thick and glossy, not runny; let it cool and thicken properly before spreading, or it will slide right off the layers.
- In the film, the headmistress Miss Trunchbull forces Bruce to eat the entire cake alone in front of the school as punishment, and the other children end up cheering him on until he finishes it, turning the scene into a moment of small, satisfying rebellion.