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Velvet Devils Food Layer Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Servings: 12 Source:

Ingredients

Velvet Devil’s Food Cake:

1 cup natural cocoa powder

3 oz bittersweet chocolate

1¼ cup boiling water

1 tbsp vanilla extract

16 tbsp unsalted butter (1 1/2 or 2 sticks), softened

1½ cups granulated sugar

2½ large eggs at room temperature

1½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

⅝ tsp table salt

12 oz chocolate chips


Chocolate Buttercream Frosting:

2 bars chocolove rich dark chocolate (maybe use strong dark?)

1 tbsp crème de cacao

1 tbsp vanilla extract

½ lb unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened

1½ cups confectioners' sugar

Directions

For the Cake:

Adjust oven rack to center position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 8-by-1 1/2-inch round baking pans (or 9” pans) with shortening. Line pan bottoms with waxed or parchment paper; grease paper as well. Dust pans with flour; tap out excess.

Mix cocoa and broken-up chocolate in small bowl; add boiling water and mix until smooth. Cool to room temperature, then stir in vanilla.

Beat butter in bowl of electric mixer set at medium-high speed until smooth and shiny, about 30 seconds. Gradually sprinkle in sugar; beat until mixture is fluffy and almost white, 3 to 5 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating 1 full minute after each addition.

Whisk flour, baking soda and salt in medium bowl. With mixer on lowest speed, add about 1/3 of dry ingredients to batter, followed immediately by about 1/3 of cocoa mixture; mix until ingredients are almost incorporated into batter. Repeat process twice more. When batter appears blended, stop mixer and scrape bowl sides with rubber spatula. Return mixer to low speed; beat until batter looks satiny, about 15 seconds longer.

Add chocolate chips and mix into batter.

Divide batter evenly between pans. With rubber spatula, run batter to pan sides and smooth top. Bake cakes until they feel firm in center when lightly pressed and a skewer comes out clean or with just a crumb or two adhering, 23 to 30 minutes. Transfer pans to wire racks; cool for 20 minutes. Run knife around perimeter of each pan, invert cakes onto racks, and peel off paper liners. Re-invert cakes onto additional racks; cool completely before frosting.

For the Buttercream Frosting:

Melt chocolate and cool to body temperature. Add crème de cacao and vanilla; set aside. Beat butter in bowl of electric mixer at medium-high speed until fluffy, about 1 minute. Add sugar and beat 3 minutes longer. Add chocolate mixture to frosting; beat until frosting mounds around beaters in a fluffy mass, 3 to 5 minutes longer. Apply frosting onto first cake layer and spread with a long metal spatula, top with second cake layer, top second layer with frosting, spread and then frost sides.