Mint chocolate cake is a stunning combination of creamy mint frosting and fudgy dark chocolate cake. Decorating is easy with either a chocolate ganache drip or mini chocolate chips. Recipe includes a how-to video!
Add oil and melted butter and stir until all of the dry ingredients have been moistened. Batter will be thick.
1 cup neutral cooking oil, ¾ cup unsalted butter
Add eggs and vanilla extract and stir well until batter is smooth and uniform.
3 eggs, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Gradually add buttermilk, stirring until batter is completely combined.
1 ½ cups buttermilk
Slowly pour hot coffee into the batter and stir until uniform. Be sure to scrape the sides and borrow of the bowl and stir again.
¾ cup very hot/boiling coffee
Evenly divide batter between prepared cake pans (if you’re weighing your cakes you’ll need 700 grams in each cake pan). Bake in center rack of 350F (175C) preheated oven for 35-38 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of each cake comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs. If your oven bakes unevenly, rotate cakes during baking.
Allow cakes to cool in their pans for 15 minutes, then run a knife along the edge to loosen cakes from pan and carefully invert onto a cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.
Frosting
In a large mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to beat butter until creamy and smooth.
1 ½ cups unsalted butter
Gradually add sugar, about a half cup at a time, using your electric mixer to stir on low-speed until combined before adding the next.
6 cups powdered sugar
Once all the sugar is added in, add salt, vanilla, and peppermint extracts and stir until completely combined. If desired, stir in food coloring until desired color is reached.
2 teaspoons peppermint extract, ½ teaspoon vanilla extract, ¼ teaspoon salt, Mint colored food coloring
Add a Tablespoon of heavy cream, and beat until well incorporated. Add more cream as needed until frosting is smooth, creamy, and easily spreadable.
1-4 Tablespoons heavy cream
Assembly
Level cakes if needed and evenly cover with frosting. I find it helpful to do a crumb coating, meaning after applying icing between the layers and stacking the cakes I’ll do a very thin layer of frosting around the exterior of the cake then place it in the freezer for 15 minutes (this will catch all the crumbs) then remove and finish decorating the cake with an even layer of frosting. See decorating notes below for more ideas on decorating.
Decorative swirls: If you’d like to do decorative swirls on top of the cake (as seen in pictures), you will need to increase the frosting recipe by 50%. I used an Ateco 848 piping tip for piping the swirls in the photo.
Mint chocolate chip cake: As shown in the video, you can forgo the ganache and the decorative swirls and press mini chocolate chips up the side of the cake. They also work nicely as decoration on top of the cake and in between the layers!
Heavy cream
You may substitute milk (non-dairy would also be fine), just note you will need less as it is thinner than cream. The additional liquid is for thinning the frosting and giving it a somewhat light, silky texture.
Storing
Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days or in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. This cake may also be tightly wrapped and frozen for up to 3 months.