Chocolate Buttermilk Cake with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

I was after something a little bit different to my ‘easy peasy chocolate cake’ (which is fab, I just wanted something a little richer) to try with some chocolate cream cheese frosting after Shane’s Aunty V mentioned it to me a few weeks back. I hadn’t had chocolate cream cheese icing since I was quite young - occasionally Mum used to top her banana cakes with it. I’d seen a few Chocolate Buttermilk cakes on Pinterest and decided to give one a go. It is fabulously moist and even though it uses a little bit of coffee (which I detest) it still tastes fab!

Now the ingredients below will make you two 20cm cakes that you can sandwich together, however, you may notice that pictures are of a single layered cake… I’m going to be honest, I had a bit of a baking fail! I ran out of cooking spray to grease my tins and I did not do a good enough job of greasing the second tin the ‘old fashioned way’ and no matter how much tapping I did there was no way that baby was coming out. The cake still works perfectly well as a single layer cake, in fact it is actually quite rich so you could halve the recipe if you wished.

Ingredients:
Cake:
3 cups flour
2 ½ cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
1 cup canola oil
1 cup buttermilk
3 large eggs
1 cup of hot instant coffee (I put 1 teaspoon of Moccona coffe to one cup boiling water and left it to cool for a couple of minutes)
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting:
200 grams cream cheese, softened
100 grams unsalted butter, softened
½ cup icing sugar
¼ cup cocoa
2-5 tablespoons milk (depending on how soft your creamed mix you will need more or less milk to loosen your frosting).

Method:
Preheat oven to 180°C, grease x2 20cm round cake tins.
Place flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder into the bowl of your stand mixer (or a large mixing bowl). Using your paddle attachment (or an electric mixer), mix on low to combine.
Keeping the mixer on low , add oil, buttermilk, vanilla, then your eggs one at a time.
Add hot coffee in a thin stream, try to pour it down the side of the bowl. And mix until you have a smooth mixture.
Divide into pans and bake for 30-35 minutes until a toothpick comes out with moist crumbs.
Once cooked remove your cakes from the oven and place on racks to cool for 15-20 minutes before removing from tins. Cool completely before frosting.
To make your chocolate cream cheese frosting you need to cream your butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy, sift in icing sugar and one or two tablespoons of milk. Sift in cocoa and beat until it is well combined, if you are finding the consistency to thick keep gradually adding milk until it reaches a consistency you are happy with.
Place half the frosting on the top of the bottom layer of your cake and the other half on top.