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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
If I wanted to make the frosting w/o the chocolate, is it ok to just leave out the cocoa? Or should I replace it with something?
Looking forward to making this for my daughters birthday!
Hi Rebecca! You can make it without cocoa but you will want to add a little more powdered sugar to compensate for the missing cocoa. I hope that helps! — Melissa
I made cupcakes today with this recipe. I wasn’t sure if I did anything wrong because the batter came out thick. Also the cupcakes taste very sweet is that from the vanilla pudding?
For the frosting can i use heavy whipping cream instead of milk or half and half?
Absolutely! Heavy cream is divine is this frosting! It will just make it richer. — Melissa
Hi! I am going to make this for my sons first birthday. I am making one big cake for the guests and then I wanted to make a smaller smash cake for my son. Do you by chance have the recipe measurements for a smaller cake? Thanks!
I never saw an answer to the questions regarding whether you add the powdered instant pudding mix or if you make the instant pudding first and then add thr pudding already made to the cake. Can you help? Want to make for my son’s birthday!
Hi Christine! You use the powdered mix and just add it to the cake. I hope that helps! — Melissa
Do you use unsalted butter for both the cake and frosting?
Hi Shana! I use salted butter for this cake. I hope that helps. Thanks! — Melissa
Salted For the frosting as well?
hi there,
I have been hunting for a yellow, fluffy , moist cake. Hopefully this would be it. I tried a different recipe from Divas and it sank in the middle. i have to do a layered 9×13′ cake. Very nervous about it. Can I use 2 9×13″ pans and can i double the recipe? How much longer should i put it in the oven? Hopefully it wont sink in the middle. Please advise urgently as I need to do it this weekend.
Thank you.
One of the most delicious cakes I have ever tasted! My whole family devoured it!! GOD bless!
I love to hear it, Melia! Thank you so much for trying my recipe. I am so glad you devoured it! — Melissa
Hi! I plan on making this cake for my husbands birthday tomorrow. It looks delicious! Before I buy the ingredients though I was wondering if it would make a difference if I used half n half instead of whole milk or buttermilk in the cake recipe.
Hi! You can use half water half half and half
I know that it sounds crazy but it works!
Hope this helps!
Would cheesecake pudding mix work as well?