Decadent Black Cocoa Cake
The occasion: a dear friend’s 31st birthday. My go-to plan: stalk her Pinterest to find a fabulous dessert she’s pinned and make it.
This rich, chocolatey dream cake is everything I want in a celebratory dessert — luscious, pillowy layers punctuated with sharp accents of fruit, coated in a velvet layer of buttercream. And the best part is it’s a super easy recipe (minus finding the black cocoa). The dried citrus slices make the decoration look next level for minimal effort. This would also be an amazing cake for Valentine’s Day next week, an anniversary, or even a special treat yourself moment!
We’re all about style, but in a realistic way since I’m not a baker. Fresh fruit and flowers can cover a multitude of errors. I don’t think I’ve ever made a layer cake that wasn’t a little lopsided, and I’ve never gotten the hang of perfectly smooth icing — but hey, it’s made with love and super tasty (gluten free, too!)
Find my adapted recipe below, or if chocolate’s not your thing, you can check out my other favorite recipe for a lemon poppyseed & lemon curd cake in my garden party post.
NOTE 1
A few notes: I loved the look of the ultra-dark cocoa powder on the original recipe so I ordered some online, but I’m sure regular cocoa powder would be just fine.
NOTE 2
Evenly chopping fruit is essential for trying to get level cake layers when you stack them. I wasn’t too precious about this (hence why my cake ended up a little crooked). Just keeping it real!
NOTE 3
The original recipe didn’t call for fruit between the layers, but when I tasted the chocolate buttercream on chocolate cake I felt like it needed some contrast or it was going to be a little too much.
Black Cocoa Cake
Recipe adapted from Not Quite Nigella
CAKE INGREDIENTS
1 and 1/2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
1 and 3/4 cups gluten free all purpose flour
1 cup black cocoa
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs at room temperature (I always forget to do this lol)
1 cup hot coffee
1/2 cup canola oil
2 tsp vanilla
3.5 oz chopped dark chocolate
Grease three 6-inch cake tins with cooking spray and preheat your oven to 320*F. Whisk together the sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda and baking powder in a large bowl. In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Beat in the eggs and then the coffee. Mix the liquid gently into the flour mixture a quarter at a time. Stir in the chopped chocolate. Divide evenly between the three tins. I baked mine for about 35 - 40 minutes (the original recipe calls for two 8-inch tins for 30 min, so I kept checking mine until a toothpick came out clean).
FROSTING INGREDIENTS
375 g room temperature butter
190 g cane sugar
4 fl oz room temperature water
3/4 cup black cocoa
1 tsp vanilla
In a mixer, beat the butter, sugar and cocoa together on the lowest speed for 1 minute, then increase it to a speed of 3 out of 10 for 3 minutes. Add the water and vanilla in at a low speed and beat on the same speed (3 out of 10) for another 5 minutes or until the sugar no longer feels gritty between your fingers.
TO DECORATE
Fresh cherries, blackberries and dried blood orange slices
Let the cake layers cool completely before leveling them (you can either do this with a large, sharp knife or get a cheap cake leveler at a craft store). Lightly frost each layer with some buttercream (I love having a cake knife for this), then evenly place halved cherries and blackberries on top of two layers before stacking them. I pop each cake layer in the freezer for 20 min or so to set the frosting and fruit between steps. I then coat the whole thing in frosting, freeze a little more, and then smooth it out with a warm knife once the frosting has firmed up a bit. I don’t really have piping skills so I just picked a fun tip I liked and made some swirls around the top of the cake, adding extra volume at four points to give some height to the fruit. Then I just tucked in lots of fresh cherries, blackberries, and some leftover dried orange slices from the cocktails I made last week!
