The details
Say hello to my new favorite cake flavor combo! Coffee Black Cocoa Cake is a rich, indulgent black cocoa cake with a silky, strong coffee buttercream. The cake has a tight crumb and a moist texture. It’s deeply chocolatey but not too sweet. The swiss meringue buttercream is the smoothest and creamiest, like a very milky cup of coffee. Together, these two components totally sing. Say yes to coffee any time of day!
Ingredients Notes
The key to this deliciously dark and rich cake is black cocoa. Black cocoa is less sweet, darker, and richer in flavor than regular cocoa. It’s a little too much just by itself, so in this recipe I pair it with regular cocoa powder. For your other cocoa powder, I like to use a high-quality natural unsweetened or dutch-process cocoa powder like this one.
The swiss meringue buttercream is flavored with instant coffee dissolved in water. For this cake, I used this instant coffee, but have also heard great things about Nescafe instant coffee in baking, and it’s widely available at grocery stores if you just can’t wait! The instant coffee gives it that super milky coffee flavor that makes this buttercream so scrumptious.
About Swiss Meringue Buttercream (SMBC)
SMBC can be intimidating but ultimately is not much more difficult to make than your typical American buttercream, and is much easier to work with! I love it with this cake and in this coffee flavor, as it is perfectly smooth and creamy without being cloyingly sweet. It really allows the rich coffee flavor to shine through without getting bogged down by sugar.
To make SMBC, you cook egg whites with sugar over a double boiler. Then, using a stand mixer or hand mixer, you whip the cooked egg whites/sugar into a silky meringue. Slowly add butter, vanilla, and salt, and your swiss meringue begins to take form. The last step is slowly adding the coffee flavor, teaspoon by teaspoon, until the SMBC is a lovely cafe au lait color. YUM!
Of course, things can go wrong and often do when making SMBC. It is very temperamental and only behaves correctly at a perfect room temp. However, don’t despair because even if your SMBC looks a mess (see below pic of mine earlier) it WILL come together!!!
If your SMBC looks curdled (like this pic below) it’s still too cold. This happens most often when you make your SMBC ahead of time and store it in the fridge (like me). When you do this, let the SMBC come to room temp then you re-whip it with a whisk attachment. But when I did it, I guess it wasn’t quite the right temp because I got this (not cute). Luckily, I kept the mixer going for another 5-10 minutes and eventually it came back together. Like magic!!
If your SMBC looks thin and soupy after you add your butter, the meringue was too hot and your butter melted. That’s okay, totally been there. Sometimes you just can’t wait. In this case, stick the whole bowl of soupy SMBC in the fridge for 10-30 minutes, depending on how warm it was. Then, get back to mixing with the whisk attachment on medium-high. Do another stint in the fridge as needed. Once you get the temp right, it will come together!
Assembling + Decorating Your Coffee Black Cocoa Cake
Assembling this Coffee Black Cocoa Cake is as easy as layer cakes come! One thing to know is these cakes tend to have a large dome, so plan to shave off that dome with a sharp serrated knife in order to get a flat cake-stacking surface.
The coffee SMBC is super stable and holds the cake up well as you layer and spread. I like a thiiiick middle SMBC layer. Then, simply spread the buttercream all over the cake and scrape, spread, and pipe to your hearts desire. I go through a step-by step tutorial of assembling layer cakes here. For this cake as pictured, I used a naked-cake technique using a bench scraper to scrape the frosting on the sides super thin, then did a thicker layer with some piping (Wilton 1M) on top. I topped it all off with a conservative sprinkling of cocoa nibs for garnish. I love how this one turned out!
Happy baking, and enjoy that coffee buzz.
Similar Recipes
- Perfect Vanilla Layer Cake
- Rich + Fudgy Chocolate Sheet Cake
- Red Velvet Cake + Cherry-Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream
- Salted Caramel Layer Cake
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Bake to this music
PrintCoffee Black Cocoa Cake
Say hello to the ultimate rich chocolate indulgence: Coffee Black Cocoa Cake. This moist, tight-crumbed, deeply chocolatey cake is complemented by silky and creamy coffee swiss meringue buttercream. The combination is a coffee-lover’s heaven!
- Yield: 1 8-inch round cake 1x
Ingredients
For the black cocoa cake:
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup neutral oil
- 3 eggs, room temp
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup black cocoa powder, sifted
- 1/2 cup dutch-process cocoa powder, sifted
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1 cup whole fat buttermilk, room temp
- 1 cup hot water
- 1/2 tsp espresso powder
For the coffee swiss meringue buttercream:
- 6 egg whites
- 1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, room temp
- 3 tbsp instant coffee
- 3 tbsp hot water
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Make your cake layers. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F and prepare 2 8-inch round pans with grease and/or parchment.
- In a large mixing bowl fitted with a stand mixer, combine oil and sugar on medium for a minute or two. Add eggs one at a time, beating on medium. Add vanilla. Beat this mixture together on medium-high for 5 minutes until lightened, fluffy, and shiny.
- In a small bowl, combine espresso powder and hot water. Stir until the espresso powder dissolves. Set aside.
- In a separate mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sifted cocoa powders, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Alternating between this dry ingredient mix and the buttermilk, reduce the mixer to low and add ingredients until the cake batter just comes together. The order will be 1/3 dry, 1/2 buttermilk, 1/3 dry, 1/2 buttermilk, 1/3 dry. Once combined, very slowly stream in the espresso powder/water mixture and combine on low until incorporated. The batter will be thin.
- Pour batter evenly in your two layer cake pans. Bake at 325 for 40-45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Allow the cake layers to cool completely to room temp in their pans on a wire cooling rack.
- Make your coffee SMBC. In a medium mixing bowl, combine egg whites and granulated sugar. Place this bowl on top of a medium saucepan filled with 2 inches of water to create a double-boiler (water should not be touching the bottom of the bowl).
- Heat egg white/sugar mixture over medium heat until the mixture becomes hot and opaque, about 5-7 minutes. Once the mixture appears to thicken and turn cloudy, pour into a heatproof mixing bowl attached to a stand mixer. Using the whisk attachment, immediately whip the egg white mixture on medium-high until it becomes white, shiny, fluffy, and forms stiff peaks, about 5-10 minutes. Continue whisking on medium-high until the mixing bowl is cool to the touch.
- In a separate bowl, mix together warm water and instant coffee granules until granules dissolve completely. Set aside to cool to room temp.
- Once the egg white and sugar meringue in your mixing bowl is room temperature, add your room-temp butter one tablespoon at a time with the mixer going. This should take 5-10 minutes to add all the butter. Towards the end, you should notice the mixture thicken and begin to take on a more frosting-like consistency.
- Once all the butter is incorporated, add vanilla and salt. Whisk on medium-high until combined. Now slooooowly add your water and instant coffee mixture, one tsp at a time, with the mixer going. At the end, the coffee mixture should be incorporated into your swiss meringue and it will turn a light brown color.
- Use this buttercream immediately, or store in an airtight container in the fridge for a few days.
- Assemble your layer cake with a thick layer of coffee SMBC in between the layers. I like to make this cake a naked cake using a bench scraper to smooth the sides of the frosting to a very thin layer. Enjoy!
Notes
- This recipe will yield 2 8-inch round cake layers, or 2 6-inch round cake layers + 6 cupcakes. Cupcakes can be cooked for 20 minutes at 325 degrees F.
- If you plan to do piping to decorate your cake, you will want to make an extra 1/2 SMBC recipe.
- Regular dutch-process cocoa powder can be substituted for black cocoa for a rich chocolate cake.
- Cake layers alone can be stored at room temp, tightly wrapped in plastic wrap for 1 week. They can also be frozen tightly wrapped for up to 1 month.
- Cake is stable at room temp for several hours, but should be refrigerated overnight. Allow the cake to come back to room temp before enjoying.
- Category: cakes, dessert
Keywords: black cocoa, dark chocolate, coffee buttercream, mocha cake
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