Name: Earthquake Cake Recipe
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 70 min
Ingredients: 1 cup sweetened shredded coconut (divided (save 1/4 cup)); 1 cup chopped pecans (divided (save 1/4 cup)); 3/4 cup semi sweet chocolate chips; 1 cup butter (2 sticks); 1 cup water; 3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch cocoa powder; 1/4 cup vegetable oil; 1 cup brown sugar; 1 cup granulated sugar; 2 teaspoons vanilla; 2 cups all purpose flour (spooned and leveled); 3/4 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 3/4 cup sour cream; 2 large eggs; 12 ounces cream cheese (1 and 1/2 blocks); 3/4 cup butter (1 and 1/2 sticks); 5 and 3/4 cup powdered sugar; 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt; 1/4 cup sweetened shredded coconut ((that you toasted previously)); 1/4 cup chopped pecans ((that you toasted previously)); 1/4 cup semi sweet chocolate chips; 1 cup cream cheese frosting ((that you reserved previously))

This Earthquake Cake is my latest obsession! A tender, gooey chocolate cake is layered with toastier-than-toasted coconut flakes, chopped pecans, and chocolate chips. But the real clincher is the cream cheese frosting that is baked WITH the cake, which seeps into the center and also covers the top to form a crackly layer. It really does look like an earthquake just happened! A great cake to bring to a picnic, BBQ, or game day! Feeds a crowd, too.

A slice of chocolate cake topped with a scoop of melting vanilla ice cream, chocolate chips, and nuts.

Making an Earthquake Cake has been on my recipe bucket list for over a decade! I finally got the chance to make my own version and it did NOT disappoint. We are having cake this week because it’s my blog-iversary. We are celebrating 15 years here at The Food Charlatan, yay!!

But first, I have to tell you this story, I’m still laughing.

Edison lost his two front teeth over the last few weeks. Naturally, we’ve been listening to “All I Want For Christmas” on repeat.

A young boy with blonde hair smiling to show a missing front tooth.

The day he lost the second tooth, he put it in a baggie and tucked it under his pillow. Later that night, I came into his room to help him say his evening prayer.

He knelt down, squinched his eyes shut, and said “Dear Heavenly Father, I’m thankful for this day. [slow smile] I’m thankful I lost my tooth. [eyes crinkling, giggling sheepishly] I-pray-that-the-tooth-fairy-will-bring-me-2-dollars-instead-of-1-dollar-in-the-name-of-Jesus-Christ-amen!” And then he flipped the bed covers up over his head.

Ha!! Clearly he thought he might genuinely be in trouble for this, but I was laughing too hard to really lock in on the prayer education. He is just too funny. (You better believe the tooth fairy only brought him 1 dollar though.)

My husband Eric has 3 sisters, and they all complain that he constantly got away with murder when they were growing up. His mom always says it’s because he made her laugh so much. Well, now I get it. Lord forgive us 😂

Sheet pan of chocolate bars topped with pecans, shredded coconut, chocolate chips, and a white icing drizzle.

Happy birthday to The Food Charlatan!

This week I’m celebrating 15 years of sharing recipes! I started this blog in our little apartment when I was just 24, and Charlotte was a little baby. It began as a fun hobby but has turned into our full time thing, 4 kids and over 1000 recipes later!

I don’t know what the future of recipe sharing will look like down the road (will everyone just use AI recipes??) but I love sharing what I’m making in the kitchen SO MUCH. I can’t see myself ever quitting! Thanks for joining me along the way! Here’s to lots of good food in years to come 💗

A close-up of a slice of dark chocolate cake drizzled with white icing, topped with chocolate chips and toasted nuts.

Anniversaries from yesteryear

I love to celebrate my blog-iversary every year with a cake or treat, hence today’s Earthquake Cake! If you want to take a walk down memory lane, here is my first blog post, and then a list of all my anniversary posts over the years:

The first blog post on The Food Charlatan (2011): Pumpkin Oatmeal White Chocolate Cookies
1st Anniversary (2012): Aunt Shirley’s Cake Mix Coffee Cake (Sadly, this recipe has been taken off the site because it was too old! Haha. Running a website is weird you guys. Sometimes we have to cut old posts that aren’t high quality. That’s why you see me updating old recipes all the time—I don’t want to lose them! It’s either update or unpublish.)
2nd Anniversary (2013): Pumpkin Oatmeal White Chocolate Chip Cookies (I did a photo reshoot of my first recipe, which I totally regret!)
3rd Anniversary (2014): The Food Charlatan’s New Blog Design (This post was also removed for SEO purposes 😭)
4th Anniversary (2015): The Best Chocolate Cake I’ve Ever Had I stand by this claim. I make this EVERY year for my birthday.
5th Anniversary (2016): Death by Chocolate Bundt Cake
6th Anniversary (2017): Upside Down Almond Crunch Cupcakes I made these for Eric’s birthday this year. It’s a killer recipe.
7th Anniversary (2018): Ginger Sticky Toffee Pudding Cake
8th Anniversary (2019): Sour Cream Coffee Cake, with a Ridiculous Amount of Streusel
9th Anniversary (2020): Homemade Spice Cake
10th Anniversary (2021): Classic Cheesecake (and an IRL party for 10 years! 🥳)
11th Anniversary (2022): Pumpkin Coffee Cake This one’s going crazy right now, because hello pumpkin! Tis the season.
12th Anniversary (2023): Picnic Cake with Buttermilk Glaze This cake is actually kind of similar to today’s Earthquake Cake! What can I say, I have a type.
13th Anniversary (2024): White Chocolate Brownies
14th Anniversary (2025): Red Velvet Cake Not as Elmo red as some Red Velvet cakes. But BEST FLAVOR.

Have you heard of an Earthquake Cake?!

Once you learn about an Earthquake Cake, it’s hard to forget because it’s just such a cute rhyme! But once you taste it—then you REALLY won’t forget about it. It’s the kind of cake that is greater than the sum of it’s parts. Chocolate, pecans, coconut: this combo is old news, right? WRONG.

FIRST: toast the coconut flakes until they’re so golden and crispy that they SHATTER in your mouth like corn flakes.

THEN: Toast the pecans until they are almost burned but not actually burned. This makes them unbelievably crispy and snappy (under-toasted nuts is honestly one of my biggest pet peeves.)

NEXT: Layer it all in a pan with a smattering of chocolate chips, and top with batter for the moistest, most tender chocolate cake in the land (spoiler alert, it’s the exact recipe for my Texas Sheet Cake. If you have made that, then YOU GET IT.)

FINALLY: Top the whole thing with cream cheese frosting that BAKES WITH THE CAKE.

A slice of chocolate cake topped with toasted coconut, chocolate chips, and white icing, being eaten with a silver fork.

The magical cream cheese topping

A frosting that bakes with the cake? How is it done, you ask? Well, let me tell you about the magic of cream cheese. Cream cheese can be made into a great frosting, right? And cream cheese can of course be made into an amazing cheesecake, right?

Well, we are kind of combining the two here! It’s like a cheesecake frosting, that gets swirled all through the cake batter for a lovely marble effect. Then, as it bakes, it CRACKS down the middle, just as your cheesecake often does (much to our chagrin), but in this case it’s what we’re going for.

But we’re not done.

Once you take it out of the oven, sprinkle the top with ever MORE of the toasty coconut, toasty pecans, and chocolate chips to form a truly unforgettable top layer.

The bottom of the cake also has that same layer of coconut, pecans, and chocolate. It fuses with the batter to form a crispy little bottom crust. I LOVE IT.

A close-up of a chocolate brownie drizzled with white icing and topped with bits of bacon.

Ingredients to know about

Here are some of the most important ingredients for Earthquake Cake!

An incredible top and bottom layer of sweetened coconut and chopped pecans toasted within an inch of their lives, PLUS chocolate chips, makes for the most incredible cake sandwich. These layers add tons of flavor, texture, and crunch, and are key in the recipe. Don’t leave them out!
The most tender chocolate cake center you could ask for. Key ingredients for this section are unsweetened Dutch cocoa powder, vegetable oil, and sour cream.
Cheesecake swirl? Yes, please. We’re making it next level by using essentially a cream cheese frosting (cream cheese, real butter, and powdered sugar). There’s no sense in making this cake if you’re trying to be low calorie, so be sure to use full fat everything. (PS, there’s an extra cream cheese glaze too!)

How to make an Earthquake Cake

Here’s everything you need to make this cake! Super easy. Basic stuff!

A kitchen counter filled with baking ingredients, including olive oil, vanilla extract, powdered sugar, flour, brown sugar, cocoa powder, butter, chocolate chips, baking soda, shredded coconut, eggs, nuts, and a salt cellar.

First up: toast your pecans until they are SUPER browned and smell so fragrant!

A baking tray filled with roasted pecan halves and pieces, spread out in a single layer. The nuts appear toasted.

Next up: the coconut.

A two-part image showing shredded coconut before and after being toasted on a baking sheet.

See what I mean by “toastier-than-toasted”?? Like, you want this coconut to be about to smoke up in flames. IT’S SO CRUNCHYYYYYY i love it.

Layer these in a cake pan:

Two side-by-side baking pans: the left shows scattered pecan pieces, and the right shows a dense, even layer of finely chopped, toasted pecans.

And add some chocolate chips, too, just for good measure:

A baking sheet filled with a mixture of chopped nuts, toasted coconut, and dark chocolate chips.

Now it’s time to make the cake batter! This is almost the same as my Texas Sheet Cake, except I love to use Dutch process Cocoa powder instead of natural. Dutch cocoa has a warmer, slightly less bitter flavor than regular cocoa powder. The original recipe for this cake calls for a German Chocolate cake mix, and German Chocolate cake uses Dutch cocoa. So that’s why I decided to use it here!

Two-part image showing butter and cocoa powder melting in a saucepan, then whisked together into a smooth chocolate mixture.

Heat the butter, water, and cocoa on the stove, then add in the oil and sugar.

Two-part image showing a hand pouring oil from a measuring cup into a saucepan, followed by a hand pouring sugar into the same saucepan with a whisk inside.

I love that it’s made in a pot on the stove. SO easy.

A hand pouring brown sugar from a measuring cup into a saucepan, followed by a hand pouring vanilla extract into the same saucepan.

Add vanilla, to your heart’s content :)

Add in the flour and baking soda and salt.

A hand adds baking powder to a pot of flour and chocolate batter, which is then whisked into a smooth, dark mixture.

Whisk it up, then add the sour cream and eggs.

A glass measuring cup containing an egg and flour, and a whisk blending the ingredients into a smooth batter.

That’s what makes this cake so moist, yum.

A two-panel image showing creamy batter being poured into a pot of dark chocolate, followed by dark chocolate being poured over a baking pan of granola and chocolate chips.

Then pour the batter right over the pecans, coconut, and chocolate chips in the pan!

THEN, grab another pot and make your frosting. It’s butter and cream cheese that you mostly melt… (the recipe calls for more butter and cream cheese than is shown here, this was an early test!)

A stick of butter and a block of cream cheese in a saucepan, shown before and after being cut into pieces and melting.

Then beat together with some powdered sugar. Melting the cream cheese and butter is not really necessary, it’s just a quick hack to soften it from being cold. You can soften them on the counter for an hour or so, and then beat in the powdered sugar in a mixing bowl, just as you normally would for cream cheese frosting. Either method is fine!

A two-part image showing butter being stirred in a pot, then mixed with powdered sugar using an electric hand mixer.

Try to beat out most of the clumps, but honestly it doesn’t matter too much!

An electric hand mixer blends powdered sugar into batter in a mixing bowl, shown before and after the ingredients are fully incorporated.

Look at this goodness. DON’T forget to save out 1 cup to put on the baked cake!

Then pour the remainder right on top of the batter!

Two photos showing white icing being poured and swirled over a rectangular pan of dark chocolate brownies.

Then use a butter knife to swirl it around! so pretty!

Then bake it for about 40-45 minutes.

A metal baking pan containing batter swirled with dark and light layers, shown before and after baking, with a toothpick being used to check for doneness in the baked version.

How to tell when it’s done.

Usually when you are baking a cake you can stick a toothpick in the center, and if it comes out with no wet batter on it, it’s done. The toothpick test is super reliable.

But with an Earthquake cake, things get tricky, because the cream cheese is so moist that it looks like wet batter, even when it’s done. Also there are chocolate chips in the cake, so if you hit a pocket of chocolate, you could be fooled.

The BEST way to tell if it’s done is to shake the pan a tiny bit to see if the center of the cake looks liquidy or wobbly. A little bit of even movement is okay, but if the center looks sloshy, leave it in to bake a couple more minutes. The edges of the cake should be pulling away from the edge of the pan. And I still did use a toothpick, as you can see in the photo above. Just make sure you stick it in the cake part! Very moist crumbs means it’s done; liquid batter means bake it longer.

A rectangular tray of baked brownies with a swirled pumpkin or caramel topping.

Here it is right out of the oven. Look at this crackly swirled top!! Guys, it’s unreal. Truly I’ve never had any other cake like this. So fun.

Then we’re going to top it off with even more coconut, pecans…

Two rectangular metal baking pans filled with a swirled chocolate and peanut butter marbled cake topped with a nutty crumble.

and chocolate chips! Add as many as you like!

A rectangular pan of brownies topped with chocolate chips and chopped nuts.

This cake is best eaten warm, in my opinion! What’s better than warm chocolate cake.

A piece of chocolate cake topped with chocolate chips and toasted coconut on a plate with a fork.

Can you see how moist it is? It’s unreal guys.

Don’t forget the cream cheese glaze to go on top!

Chocolate cake in a baking pan topped with toasted coconut, nuts, chocolate chips, and a white glaze.

How to store leftovers

I like to leave this cake at room temperature as long as possible, even with the cream cheese topping. I promise it will be fine. It will dry out faster in the fridge. Cover tightly and leave on the counter for about 48 hours.

After that I would stick it in the fridge. If you still have cake lying around after 48 hours, first of all, 1) up your cake consumption tolerance, and 2) holler atcha neighbors. Or freeze, tightly wrapped! Say no to dry cake.

The leftovers of this cake are delicious at room temperature, taking individual bites, using the same fork left by the pan for an entire afternoon. OR you could commit, and serve yourself a slice on a plate warmed up in the microwave for about 30 seconds at 50% power.

Can you freeze this cake?

This cake freezes really well, and will last in the freezer for a good 2-3 months! You can freeze an entire baked cake. Wait for it to cool completely after baking, then wrap well in two layers of plastic wrap and one layer of foil. Let it thaw in the refrigerator overnight or on the counter for a couple of hours. You can enjoy the cake cold, at room temperature, or warm the whole pan in a 300 degree oven for about 15-20 minutes or until it’s as warm as you like. I recommend baking the cake in a disposable pan so you don’t lose access to your 9×13 pan.

You can also freeze individual pieces of cake. Add the cut pieces to a silpat or parchment lined baking sheet and flash freeze for 30-45 minutes. Once the pieces are frozen through, transfer them to a freezer ziplock bag and seal well, removing as much air as possible. Thaw one or two pieces at a time on the counter (keep the pieces covered so they don’t dry out!) for 20-30 minutes. Enjoy at room temperature, or warm the piece(s) in the microwave at 50% power for about 30 seconds or so.

A close-up of a baked dessert topped with chocolate chips, chopped pecans, and shredded coconut.

More delicious one pan cakes

Sometimes you want an epic, multi-layered cake in all its glory for sure, but I’m a huge fan of super tasty and EASY cakes that you serve straight from the pan. Here are a few of the best on the blog!