Dark Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Cream Cheese Buttercream | My Cake School

If you love dark chocolate, you’re going to love our latest recipe for dark chocolate cake! The dark chocolate cake layers are moist and decadent, and guaranteed to please any chocolate lover!  How to Make Dark Chocolate Cake This dark chocolate layer cake joins a long list of beloved chocolate cake recipes in our ! In some recipes, we use unsweetened cocoa powder to achieve the chocolate flavor, and in others we use melted chocolate. Today, we are using both! **Make sure to check out the recipe card at the bottom of this post for the full, printable recipe! Here is a quick rundown of our steps:               Chocolate Cream Cheese Buttercream Today’s chocolate cream cheese buttercream is actually a new recipe for us! It is a cross between American chocolate buttercream and our , and it provides a wonderful contrast to the dark, rich cake layers. We tried a lemon version of this recipe recently when making our blueberry cake and liked it so much that we wanted to try it again. What we love about this chocolate cream cheese recipe is that it is very easy to pipe with and isn’t quite so soft due to the higher proportion of butter and powdered sugar. While this frosting recipe doesn’t call for as much cream cheese as our other chocolate cream cheese recipe, the delicious tanginess is still there and it gives the frosting a nice, creamy consistency–it also gives us plenty of frosting to fill, frost, and add decorative piping to our three layer cake! This frosting comes together effortlessly as you first mix the softened butter, then add in the cream cheese, cocoa, powdered sugar, milk and salt. It is creamy, dreamy, and delicious (and makes just over 5 cups of frosting)! Decorating the Dark Chocolate Cake There are so many decorating options with this cake as the frosting is very easy to work with. We used a simple cake comb and star tip for a classic look. Settling the Cake Do you allow your filled, unfrosted cakes to settle? This is an optional step but one that I like to do whenever time allows. Cake tiers always settle just a bit after they’ve been filled and frosted. They lose just a small amount of height as gravity kicks in and the weight of the cake layers slightly pushes the filling out from between the cake layers. This can cause bulges around the sides of your cake which is especially noticeable  if you’ve already frosted around the sides of the cake with a smooth finish (rather than textured or piped). Ugh! Settling the cake in advance is the best way to prevent those frustrating bulges! Simply fill the cake layers, wrap with a layer or two of plastic wrap (before frosting the cake), and place a weight of some sort on top– not a crushing weight–just something that will add a light, steady pressure. I often use a cake pan or two–or a medium sized book. Give a gentle push down or two and then allow the cake (with weight) to sit for a few hours. Since this is a perishable filling, you’ll want it to settle in the refrigerator. Once settled, unwrap the plastic-wrapped cake and frost as usual.  Combing the cake and piped details After frosting the cake, swept around the sides with a bench scraper to ensure that I had a nice, even amount of frosting all the way around. Then, I went in with a cake comb to add a striped effect. If you have any trouble with the frosting being too soft, or combing away too much frosting, simply pop the cake in the freezer to firm up a bit (15 minutes or so), and then continue- it will make the process much easier! I smoothed over the top of the chilled, frosted cake with a warm spatula before adding small rosettes, shells, and stars with my star tip 21. I kept things very simple with this cake design but I still love the look!  More Chocolate Cakes and Frostings to Love We’ve made so many chocolate cake recipes over the years!! You can see our full collection in our , but here is a quick sampling!:  Dark Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting Moist homemade dark chocolate cake layers are sure to please the chocolate lovers in your life! This cake would taste amazing with so many frostings and fillings- today we’ve paired it with a delicious Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting. For the Dark Chocolate Cake Layers For the Chocolate Cream Cheese Buttercream For the Dark Chocolate Cake LayersFor the Chocolate Cream Cheese ButtercreamAdd the slightly softened butter in the bowl of your mixer and mix on medium speed until smooth.Add pieces of cream cheese to the mixing bowl. The cream cheese should be soft enough that it combines easily into the butter mixture.Lower the mixing speed and add the sugar and cocoa slowly, along with the milk. Return to medium speed until well combined-Do not over mix. The longer it is mixed, the softer it becomes. If the frosting becomes too soft, refrigerate for 10 minutes or so to firm up. Makes about 5 1/2 cups of frosting. Cakes frosted with cream cheese frosting should be refrigerated until closer to the time of decorating.Decorating the CakeDecorate the cake however you like, this frosting is very easy to work with. If it becomes too soft, just pop it in the refrigerator for 5-10 minutes. I filled and frosted the cake, smoothed around the sides with a bench scraper to remove excess frosting, and then used a cake comb to decorate around the sides. I used a piping tip 21 to decorate the top of the cake with small rosettes, shells, and stars. Recommended Products © Melissa Diamond Cake Tutorials, Delicious Cake Recipes, and More! Thank you for checking our our Dark Chocolate Cake!! We hope that you enjoy the recipe–if you give it a try, please leave a comment or photo below! For tons more of our favorite cake recipes and frostings, don’t miss our   We have all sorts of cake recipes from fruity cakes to caramel cakes, cocktail-inspired cakes, trusted classics and more. You’ll find both scratch cake recipes as well as doctored mixes. There is something for everyone! Also, if you are interested in cake decorating, you can find our collection of free cake tutorials including our Free Cake Decorating Video Tutorials here:  If you are interested in learning even more about cake decorating, you should consider becoming a member of My Cake School! As a member, you’ll be able to access every cake decorating video that we’ve made over the past 10+ years! You can find out all of the details here: Joining Information for My Cake School Finally, if you are on Facebook, make sure to check out our Facebook Group! We’d love for you to join us with your cake questions, cake advice, or to share photos of your work! Thanks for stopping by, and happy baking!