Condensed Milk Cake

This black and white Condensed Milk Cake not only looks good, but it tastes good as well. Like, really good! The sweet layers are covered with a cool, sour cream frosting that just balances everything out. And the condensed sweetened milk really makes this taste like a million dollars! And it is very, very easy to put together.

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I generally don’t bake a lot in my house because with just two grown ups in the house, we’d be eating cake the whole week (or until it goes bad). With that said, in the Russian culture people are constantly “coming over for tea”. And we are no exception. And generally that means putting something sweet on the table. Germany has lots of awesome sweets and you might get away with putting store-bought sweets on the table once in a while, but most people usually expect a home made something (I think this is more of a Russian thing).

This condensed milk cake, also known as Dalmatian cake, is so easy to make that even if you normally don’t bake, you can’t really mess it up. You don’t need to have any special skills (such as perfectly spreading frosting on a cake, to make it look good) because this cake just kind of (literally) gets thrown together. And it’s a good old sheet cake, so you can feed quite a few people with it. It’s a win win 😍.

Ingredients for Condensed Milk Cake

Here are all the ingredients needed for the cake. The only thing you might not have on hand, and the main ingredient in this cake, is the sweetened condensed milk (the blue can in the picture). Everything else is kind of standard. Fun language side note. Sweetened condensed milk is called Milchmädchen in German. Literal translation – “milk girl”.

Making the batter

Combine eggs and sugar in a bowl and using an electric hand mixer, beat until the mixture becomes pale in color. My mixer is something like this (affiliate link). It’s simple and not very expensive and I’ve been using it for years.

Add sour cream, flour, baking powder, and sweetened condensed milk (I added about 4 full tablespoons of the condensed milk and that was about 1/4 of the can). Mix well until the batter has a smooth consistency.

Cover two different baking sheets with parchment paper. Add 2/3 of the batter to one sheet and spread out evenly. The size of the sheet for this layer was 15 x 10 in. and the batter fit perfectly. I am linking to one similar to mine above.

Add cocoa powder to the rest of the batter. Mix well and pour out/spread on a second sheet.

Let both batters stand for 15 minutes. While the batter is resting, preheat the oven. After the 15 minutes, bake the condensed milk cake at 350° F for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

A note about ovens. In Germany, most of the ovens have what’s called an Umluft function, or a fan-assisted function. Generally, when using this function the temperature needs to be lower (in this case it should be 320° F (160° C), because the fan makes the oven hotter). You can bake multiple things together if you have this option. You might need to check your oven if this is a possibility.

If you don’t have such a function on your oven, bake the sheets separately at 350° F for 15-20 minutes. You might also need to increase the time, as normal ovens take a bit longer to bake. You can always check the done-ness of the cake by inserting a toothpick to see if it comes out clean. To read more about this topic, check out this link Is a Fan Assisted Oven Better.

Frosting for Condensed Milk Cake

White frosting

For the first (white) frosting, mix sour cream and sugar. Slowly add the condensed milk while mixing and mix until you have a smooth frosting.

Take about half of the frosting and spread over the white cake layer in the baking sheet.

Then, break the black cake layer into many little pieces (about an inch big) and throw over the spread out frosting.

Take the rest of the white frosting and drop spoonful portions all over the black cake pieces.

Black frosting

For the second (black) frosting, heat the butter in a small pot. Add sugar, cocoa, sour cream and the rest of the condensed milk to the butter. Mix well and bring to a slow boil. Take off the heat and randomly drop spoonfuls of the frosting over the cake.

Once done, let the condensed milk cake cool completely before serving. You can refrigerate left overs for 3-4 days (if it’s not gone by then).

I love how the colors are such a contrast on this cake. No wonder that another name for it is “Dalmatian Cake”. It really doesn’t look like a cake that was kind of thrown together. Or does it? 😂

Lastly, if you make this Condensed Milk Cake, make sure to leave a comment and/or give this recipe a rating here! I’d love to hear back from you and will do my best to answer and respond to every comment. And of course, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram if you make this recipe. I’d love to see the photos of the recipes you have made!

Check out my Recipe Index for additional easy recipes.