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Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting
The BEST Yellow Cake Recipe with Milk Chocolate Frosting. 5-Star Rated Recipe!
I was one of those kids that were counting down the minutes at my birthday party until I could blow out the candles and eat my big ol birthday cake. I wanted a piece with a thick layer of homemade chocolate frosting.
This is literally the best yellow cake recipe. It is so flavorful, moist, and buttery! The homemade chocolate frosting is insanely rich and creamy and pairs perfectly with the homemade yellow cake.
It’s New Year’s Eve so let’s go out of 2016 with a huge yellow cake with chocolate buttercream because I see only green smoothies in my future….
If you read my last post about making a homemade yellow cake — Homemade Yellow Butter Cake, I went through many experiments to bring you these cake recipes. My pants just got tighter in an effort to bring you the perfect cake!
We had large cake testings to determine the winners of the unofficial homemade yellow cake recipe challenge.
The path to the Yellow Birthday Cake with Milk Chocolate Frosting…
The recipe that I posted a few days ago is for a traditional yellow butter cake. I wanted to change it up a little and experiment with adding in some vanilla pudding mix. Since it is known to add a good amount of moisture to a cake, I was excited to see how it would affect the final product.
It not only made a denser, moister cake but also a flavorful one as well. It’s a small amount of pudding but was still a big difference-maker. This is truly THE BEST YELLOW CAKE EVER.
The chocolate buttercream recipe is one that I played with over the years and is now my go-to recipe. It has the perfect balance of rich chocolate, butter, and powdered sugar and isn’t over the top sweet. It truly is the greatest chocolate frosting. If you are a chocolate cake lover, you must try my Love at First Sight Chocolate Cake.
Add some colorful sprinkles to this Yellow Birthday Cake with Milk Chocolate Frosting if you want to make kids really happy.
Here are my favorite baking pans — USA Bakeware Round Cake Pan 8 inch and USA Bakeware Round Cake Pan 9 inch.
A Wilton Angled Icing Spatula is the perfect tool to use to frost this cake.
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Yellow Birthday Cake with Milk Chocolate Frosting
Equipment
Ingredients
- 4 Large Eggs
- 2/3 cup Whole Milk or Buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla
- 2 1/4 cups Flour
- 1 1/2 cups Sugar
- 2 teaspoons Baking Powder
- 3/4 teaspoon Salt
- 1 cup Butter softened, cut into cubes
- 2 Tablespoons Oil
- 1/3 cup Vanilla Pudding Mix instant
Chocolate Buttercream Frosting:
- 1 1/2 cups Butter softened
- 1 cup Cocoa
- 5 cups Powdered Sugar
- 1/3 cup Cream Half n Half or Milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a small bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, and vanilla.
- In a standing mixer, stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
- Beat the butter into the flour mixture, one cube at a time. Continue to beat until it resembles coarse crumbs.
- Add the 1/2 of the egg-milk mixture and oil and beat the batter is light and fluffy. Add remaining egg-milk mixture and vanilla pudding and mix just until combined.
- Take a spatula and scrape the sides of the bowl.
- Spread into greased 8 or 9-inch cake pans and smooth tops with a spatula.
- Bake for 16-22 minutes, depending on the depth of pans. If the cake layers are thin, they will cook for less time than the thicker layers.
- Let cakes cool. Run a knife around edge of cake pan and flip over. Frost with milk chocolate frosting.
- To make Chocolate Buttercream Frosting:
- In mixing bowl, cream together butter, cocoa, powdered Sugar, and cream until light and fluffy. You may want to add more cream or milk depending on consistency. Once the cake has cooled and has been removed from pans, frost each layer with frosting.
- Top with chocolate shavings, chocolate chips, sprinkles, M & M's or whatever your heart desires.
Video
Notes
- This recipe makes two 9-inch cake layers or three 8-inch cake layers. If you use three 8-inch cake pans, the layers will be thinner and will cook for less time.
- This is one baked good that gets even better the next day, if covered.
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Happy Baking, my friends! xo
Obviously this is an old post and I may not get any answers. But I made this cake, word for word, for my son’s birthday. The cake took 27 minutes until a toothpick came out clean. When I just went to flip the cake to cool on rack to eventually frost (after some time, the middle was stuck to the cake pan, and the center didn’t seem cooked. It was soft and smooshy. I’ve made countless cakes before. This is not something that happens! Any idea what went wrong here!? Btw, great frosting recipe! It’s delcious.
I just wanted to update my comment. I realised after a few months later, it was an issue with my oven!
Thanks for a fabulous recipe! My daughter is having a cake decorating party and each guest gets a 2-layer six inch cake to decorate. This recipe made 3 6″layers. I baked them for about 40 minutes and they are just perfect! I had been hunting for a good yellow cake and I have certainly found it. Thanks!
Hi! Your recipe looks great! I’m looking forward to making this! How far in advance can I make this cake and how should I store it?
This is silly but… does this cake need to be refrigerated? The icing has milk and butter, which makes me think so, but I prefer room temp cake if possible. Thanks!
I used the chocolate buttercream frosting recipe and it was great! Not too sweet!
Good morning, this is going to be a crazy question, with the vanilla pudding do I make the pudding first and then add to the cake mix or do I add the package of set pudding mix
Hello Melissa! If I’m using cake flour do I still add the same amount of baking powder or does the amount change?
Can this be made into a sheet cake? If so, what size pan would I need?
I made this cake for a friend’s birthday and it was a big hit! The waitress at the restaurant begged for a piece of cake. This is an amazing yellow cake recipe and I will make it again.
For the frosting, what brand of Cocoa do you use? Is it Dutch processed?
How would you improvise if all you had are semi-sweet chocolate chips?