Chocolate cake over time
299 of the 357 recipes carry a publication date, from 2005 to 2026. Below: how many pages each year, whether the typical cake changed between the oldest and newest, and the oldest and newest pages themselves.
A date here is the one the page gives for itself: when it was published, or last updated. Sites often refresh an old recipe and its date together, so read these as when the pages went up, not when the recipes were created.
Recipes per year
Dated pages by the year they give. The first bar gathers the 2 pages from before 2007. Shading marks the periods compared below.
How the typical cake changed
No ingredient shows a clear change between chocolate cake pages dated before 2018 and those dated 2023 or later. The medians move a little from period to period, but by no more than chance would with this many recipes.
| Per 100 g flour | Before 201884 recipes | 2018 to 202078 recipes | 2021 to 202247 recipes | 2023 and later90 recipes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CocoaNo clear change | 25% | 25% | 23% | 25% |
| ChocolateNo clear change | 0% | 0% | 20% | 0% |
| SugarNo clear change | 160% | 142% | 120% | 135% |
| FatNo clear change | 64% | 61% | 66% | 59% |
| EggNo clear change | 46% | 46% | 53% | 46% |
| LiquidNo clear change | 146% | 145% | 128% | 137% |
| LeaveningNo clear change | 4.8% | 5% | 4.6% | 5.2% |
| SaltNo clear change | 0.5% | 1.2% | 1.1% | 1.4% |
Each cell is the median baker's percentage in that period: grams of the ingredient per 100 g of flour. Higher and lower compare the newest period with the oldest, only where the change is clear (see how below). Periods are cut at year boundaries so each holds about the same number of recipes.
Oldest and newest pages
Oldest dates
Apr 11, 2005
“All-the-Stops” Chocolate Cake · bettycrocker.comAug 25, 2006
Bolo de chocolate · tudogostoso.com.brJun 2, 2007
The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake Ever · thepioneerwoman.comJun 25, 2007
Basic Chocolate Cake · countryliving.comAug 22, 2008
Classic Chocolate Cake · countryliving.com
Newest dates
Sep 8, 2026
Layered Banana Chocolate Cake Recipe (Two Flavoured Cake) · yummytummyaarthi.comMay 8, 2026
9x13 Chocolate Cake · thefirstyearblog.comApr 27, 2026
Perfect Chocolate Sheet Cake · iambaker.netApr 21, 2026
Moist Chocolate Cake · butternutbakeryblog.comMar 30, 2026
Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake · savorthebest.com
How the dates are read
Each date is the publication date in the recipe page's own structured data. 36 of the 357 recipes have none, or one without a year (such as “December 3”), and are left out.
22 more carry a date their site gave to many pages at once, which marks a site move or redesign rather than a publication: 2018-01-01 on tasteofhome.com (222 pages across Recipe Lab, 8 of them here), 2022-10-07 on receitasnestle.com.br (25 pages across Recipe Lab, 6 of them here) and 2026-07-29 on vaqueiro.pt (15 pages across Recipe Lab, 1 of them here), and 7 more like it. They are left out too.
A change counts as clear when the newest period's median differs from the oldest period's by at least a tenth and a rank test puts the gap at 2.5 standard errors or more. For the share of recipes using an ingredient, the bar is 3 standard errors and 8 percentage points. Every ingredient is tested, so a lower bar would flag chance differences on most pages.
2026 is still in progress, so its bar is short for a reason that has nothing to do with baking.