Last week, my best friend turned 25. We’ve known each other since we were 10 years old and have been celebrating our birthday’s together ever since.
This girl is the ultimate chocaholic. I genuinely don’t think I know anyone who loves chocolate as much as she does. It’s kind of the best.
I can’t take any credit for this recipe. I didn’t have time to test and tweak anything so I turned to Joy the Baker for a cake recipe and she did not disappoint.
This cake was lick the batter off the spatula good.
Mary loves Maltesers (because England makes great chocolate) so I decorated her cake with those and plenty of colourful sprinkles. Because let’s be serious, you can never have too much chocolate or too many sprinkles.
This is a three (!!!) layer cake with the fluffiest most delicious buttercream. I made the cake layers the day before I frosted the cake. When they had cooled down after baking, I wrapped them and put them in the freezer. {Pro tip: icing/frosting a cake when its frozen is wayyyy easier}.
If you have a large offset spatula to use for frosting the cake, that would be ideal. If you don’t, your cake will just have some character and there is nothing wrong with that!
Ingredients
Cake:
- 3 cups cake flour
- 3/4 cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. instant espresso powder (optional)
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 tbsp. pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups buttermilk
Frosting:
- 2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 5-6 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 3 tsp. pure vanilla extract
- About 1/4 cup heavy cream
Instructions
Cake:
- Put oven racks in the centre and upper third of the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and flour three 9-inch round baking pans.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and instant espresso powder, if using.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugars together on medium speed until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract. Reduce the mixer speed to low, add half of the flour mixture, and beat until flour mixture is incorporated. Add the buttermilk in a slow stream and beat until thoroughly combined. Add the remaining flour mixture and beat until just combined. Remove the bowl from the mixer and finish stirring with a spatula. Divide the batter among the 3 prepared cake pans.
- Bake until golden brown on top and a wooden pick inserted in the centre comes out clean, 20-25 minutes. Let cool in the pans for 20 minutes before inverting onto wire racks to cool completely before frosting.
- If you're not frosting the cake right away, double-wrap in plastic wrap and store in the freezer. Will last up to 7 days in the freezer. When ready to frost, remove from the freezer, unwrap and frost frozen!
Frosting:
- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium speed until soft, about 1 minute. Add 2 cups of the confectioners' sugar, the salt, and vanilla. Beat on low speed until the sugar is well incorporated. Add another 2 cups sugar and the cream. Add remaining two cups of sugar as needed to thicken the frosting. Beat on medium speed until the frosting is smooth and fluffy, about 4 minutes.
Assembling the cake:
- Place first layer on cake stand and spread some of the frosting over the top. Cover with sprinkles, if desired (I did. Best decision ever).
- Place 2nd layer on top of 1st and add more frosting/sprinkles. Place 3rd layer on top and repeat.
- Scrape out the rest of your frosting and put it on top of your top cake layer. Using an offset spatula, spread the frosting, pushing it off the cake onto the sides. Spread the frosting around the sides of the cake, pushing more off the top if needed.
- Once frosted, pour sprinkles on top and decorate sides with Maltesers.
