This Chocolate Cake with Fluffy Mint Chocolate Chip Buttercream features the best chocolate cake recipe ever, piled high with irresistibly fluffy mint flavored frosting. It’s crazy awesome!
Growing up, birthdays were always celebrated with a chocolate wacky cake. Made in one mixing bowl, with minimal and inexpensive ingredients (a cake recipe made famous during the Great Depression), it’s still a quick and easy favorite chocolate cake recipe of mine. But I’ve been playing around with recipes over the past few years, determined to find a go-to chocolate cake recipe of just a bit more indulgence. And I can finally say that I have it. I’m sharing the recipe with you here today, topped with an irresistible frosting. If you like to celebrate with a little bit o’ green for St. Patrick’s Day, this Chocolate Cake with Fluffy Mint Chocolate Chip Buttercream would be a most excellent dessert choice!
I’ve made a number of different chocolate cake recipes over the years, but the one I kept returning to is from Ina Garten’s book Barefoot Contessa at Home, named “Beatty’s Chocolate Cake”. Ina’s cookbooks and Food Network show are among my favorite and most trusted cooking and baking sources. I like Ina’s gentle, positive spirit, plus her kitchen knowledge and approachable recipes.
My cake recipe is just slightly adapted from Ina’s. It’s rich and chocolatey, with a large, super moist crumb. I have deemed it “perfect”. For my birthday, I want this chocolate cake.
This recipe includes espresso powder and hot brewed coffee. And whenever I include these ingredients, there are always people asking if they can eliminate them. I answer back, “Of course you can, but I highly recommend just trying it first, because those ingredients only help to boost the chocolate flavor”. It’s true. And if you’re one of those people, I beg you to just give it a try. I promise that you’ll be rewarded with some of the best chocolate baked goods you’ve ever had.
I topped the cake with a super fluffy mint flavored buttercream frosting. Oh my. Incredibly light in texture, and so killer creamy, it’s totally a lick-the-beater-clean kind of frosting. When the finely chopped chocolate is folded in, it’s like the best frosting version of that awesome mint chocolate chip ice cream.
This chocolate cake with fluffy mint chocolate chip buttercream would be perfect for celebrating so many holidays – think St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Christmas, and New Year’s. And I know several people in my life who would absolutely love to have this sweet chocolate treat to celebrate with on their birthday. I also happen to know a person who would make this cake for no other reason than simply wanting to enjoy the best chocolate cake ever, piled high with irresistibly fluffy mint chocolate chip buttercream. {pick me!}
Chocolate Cake with Fluffy Mint Chocolate Chip Buttercream
Ingredients
- FOR THE CHOCOLATE CAKE:
- unsalted butter for preparing the pan
- 2 c. all-purpose flour plus more for preparing the pan
- 2 c. sugar
- ¾ c. cocoa powder
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1-1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. espresso powder
- 1 tsp. kosher salt
- 1 c. buttermilk
- ½ c. vegetable oil
- 2 extra-large eggs at room temperature
- 2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
- 1 c. freshly brewed hot coffee
- FOR THE FLUFFY MINT CHOCOLATE CHIP BUTTERCREAM:
- 1 c. unsalted butter at room temperature
- 3 c. powdered sugar
- ⅛ tsp. kosher salt
- 3 T. half and half
- 2 tsp. mint extract not peppermint!
- 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
- green food coloring if desired (I used Americolor Leaf Green #111)
- 3 oz. about 1/2 cup finely chopped semi-sweet chocolate
Instructions
FOR THE CHOCOLATE CAKE:
- Preheat oven to 350° F. Butter the bottom and sides of a 9″ x 13″ pan. Line bottom of pan with parchment paper, and then butter the parchment paper. Add a bit of flour to coat the entire inside surface of the pan, tap out the excess, and set pan aside. This will allow you to turn the cake out onto a platter. If you want to leave the cake in the pan, skip the parchment paper and follow the rest of the steps.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, add flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, espresso powder, and salt. Mix on low speed to combine dry ingredients well.
- Add buttermilk, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla to dry mixture and mix together on medium speed until well combined. Reduce speed to low and carefully add hot coffee to the cake batter. Once the coffee is incorporated, scrape the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula and then turn mixer speed to high and beat for 1 minute.
- Pour cake batter into the prepared pan. Bake for about 40 minutes, until the center is mounded and firmed up, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove cake from oven and let cool for about 15 minutes. Place serving platter upside down on top of cake pan, and invert cake onto it. Let cake cool completely before spreading the top with the fluffy mint chocolate chip buttercream.
FOR THE FLUFFY MINT CHOCOLATE CHIP BUTTERCREAM:
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, whip butter on medium-high speed until very fluffy, about 8 minutes, occasionally scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl.
- Add powdered sugar and salt, and beat on low to incorporate. Add half and half, mint extract, and vanilla extract, mixing on low until combined. Increase mixer speed to medium-high and beat until very light and fluffy, about 5 to 6 minutes, occasionally scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl.
- Add green coloring, if desired, and mix until incorporated. With a rubber spatula, fold in the chopped chocolate just before spreading over the chocolate cake.
Nutrition Information:
Here are more chocolate + mint recipes you may like:
- Mom’s Chocolate Mint Brownies
- Grasshopper Cake
- Mint Oreo Cupcakes from Confessions of a Cookbook Queen
- Mint Chocolate Bark from Chocolate, Chocolate and More
- Chocolate Mint Chip Cookies from Two Peas and Their Pod
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Hi, will this make enough cake batter and icing for a two layer cake? Thanks!
Hi Elisabeth – it all depends on the size of your pans. Try to use 2 pans that would have a similar area as the original recipe, and you should be good!
I wanted to make it Christmas-y so I used peppermint. I separated the frosting and left half white and colored the other half pink, and made wavy stripes
I used the buttercream icing recipe on my own chocolate cake recipe. The icing was absolutely divine! All I had was peppermint extract, I couldn’t find mint anywhere! It still turned out perfectly though.
I have a little time-saving tip, finely grate the semi-sweet chocolate. It took me less than two minutes and I refrigerated it before adding to the icing. You’ll get the exact same results as you would from chopping it.
Thanks for the amazing icing recipe!
I’m so glad you liked this, Brianna. And thanks for the tip!
What is half and half?
I made this to celebrate my mom’s birthday & it was delicious! The frosting is THE best.
Love how fluffy your frosting is! Beautiful cake!
I’m making this frosting right now
I made this cake today for a St. Patty’s Day treat. It was delicious! My husband, who normally prefers plain cake over frosted, tried the cake by itself and then with the frosting. He said the frosting definitely made the cake. I’ll know I’ll be making this one again!
I made the cake. It sank in the middle. Made exactly as recipe stated. It did have a good taste.
Hi Lisa – I’m wondering if it wasn’t baked quite long enough, to get the center to firm up?
Hi- not sure if this is a stupid question but what is 3T half and half?. Thankyou
Hi Jemma – that would be 3 tablespoons of half and half.
Where do you find mint extract? I went to 3 different stores (including Michaels) and couldn’t find it. So I went with peppermint.
Hi Susan – I always buy it at my regular grocery store (Cub Foods), in the baking section with all the other extracts. They carry both McCormick and Watkins brands of mint extract. Amazon carries them also.
This cake is so perfect for St. Patty’s Day!
Where do u find powder expresso
Hi Tammy – I just added a link to the espresso powder in the recipe. King Arthur carries espresso powder, and I’ve also gotten it at Williams Sonoma.
Is there any way to make this without the coffee? I don’t like coffee (I know, gasp!), lol
You could just use hot water. But PLEASE try it with the coffee – you really can’t taste coffee flavor, it just enhances the chocolate.
I love chocolate & mint and that buttercream?? Swoon….
However, I noticed in the recipe you noted that the mint extract should Not be peppermint. Why is that?
Hi Trish – mint and peppermint are different – think mint chocolate chip ice cream versus a candy cane.
I adore that mint chip fluff you have on top. It was always a favorite ice cream, and the frosting incarnation looks just as tempting.
No worries Brenda, it was really wonderful! So chocolatety and that frosting was perfect! My girlfriend loved it and took the rest home to share with her big family! Good for me because it was so yummy that I would have wanted to eat it all! 😉
So glad to hear this, Donna! :)
I had issues with my cake erupting in the middle as it baked? I don’t know what went wrong. It looked liked a crevice down the middle and tested done everywhere but there, which was still wet. So I baked it 5 more minutes and took it out. I have not cut into it yet because it is a birthday cake for tonight. However I had used the parchment paper and turned it over so that crevice was hidden. The frosting was AWESOME! I think it will be tasty. However I wondered if the cake batter was supposed to be really runny, like soup? That was how it was when I poured into into the prepared baking pan.
Hi Donna. Oh, no! I have no idea what could have happened. I suppose just differences in ovens can make a difference in the baking time. To reassure you, yes, the batter is very thin when you pour it into the pan before baking. Please update me and let me know how it was once you cut into it.
My family would love this cake on St. Patrick’s Day—or absolutely ANY day!!!
yes, please!! looks and sounds dee-lish. xo