Dark Chocolate Valentine’s Cake

Extra rich dark chocolate cake paired with classic vanilla American buttercream and an easy, but super cute Valentine’s Day design.

Valentine’s Day requires chocolate. It just does. And if you ask me, you can’t go wrong with cake. This is my go-to chocolate cake recipe that I’ve used for everything from family birthday cakes to large wedding cakes. It’s dark chocolate with a hint of coffee flavor that stays so moist for DAYS. Let’s make it.

How to Make Dark Chocolate Valentine’s Cake

Make the Dark Chocolate Cake

Preheat the oven to 350 and spray cake pans with a nonstick spray that contains flour like Baker’s Joy. You can bake this cake as 4 6″ rounds, or 3 8″ rounds. Set pans aside while you make the batter.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla. While continuing to whisk, slowly pour in the hot coffee. Make sure to whisk quickly so that the coffee doesn’t start to cook the eggs.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until well combined. Pour batter into prepared cake pans. Bake at 350 for 23-25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean with a few moist crumbs attached. Let cool for 15 minutes, then wrap in plastic wrap and cool in the fridge. You can do this a day or two ahead of time.

Make the Vanilla American Buttercream

In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the butter for 10 minutes, scraping down the bottom and sides of the bowl every couple of minutes. Once the butter is silky smooth and almost white in color, mix in the salt and vanilla.

Sift the powdered sugar, then add it to the butter half at a time, mixing on low for 3 minutes after each addition. I don’t always sift my powdered sugar, but when you want to frost a cake with smooth sides, you shouldn’t skip the sifting or you could risk your buttercream having clumps.

After all of the powdered sugar is mixed in, add heavy cream 1-2 TBSP at a time until you reach your desired consistency. Don’t forget to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl occasionally. For this amount of buttercream, I typically end up adding around 6 TBSP of heavy cream. Do a final mix with your rubber spatula to get rid of any air bubbles.

Frost the Cake

This cake usually bakes up pretty even, but if your layers dome a bit, level them off with a serrated knife or cake leveling tool. Crumb coat the cake. Start with a cake stand or cake board on a turn table. Put a little buttercream on your board and lay the first layer down. I like to use a cookie scoop to add the buttercream between layers to ensure I have an equal amount of buttercream in each layer. Spread the buttercream evenly, then add the next layer. Repeat until all 3 (or 4 if you made a 6″) are stacked.

Apply a thin layer of buttercream to the outside and smooth with a spatula or cake comb. The crumb coat doesn’t have to be perfectly smooth. Pop in the fridge for 30 minutes to set the buttercream.

Remove the cake from the fridge and apply another layer of frosting. Use a cake comb to smooth the sides of the cake. You can leave the raw edge at the top, or smooth it out by dragging an offer spatula from the outside to the inside of the cake. Make sure to wipe off the spatula each time.

Decorate the Cake

Once the cake is smooth, decorate it however you’d like. To achieve the same look as mine, you’ll need some small heart sprinkles and pink and brown gel food coloring. Separate your leftover buttercream into two bowls. You should have about 1/2 C or so left over. Create your dark shade first. I like to mix pink and brown to get a muted pink shade. Once the color is how you like it, take a small amount of the frosting and mix it into the other bowl of white icing. This will get you a lighter shade of the same pink color, ensuring that the shades of pink go well together.

Add a bit of the dark pink to a piping bag with a small round tip. Pipe “XO” randomly all over the cake. Then, place the rest of the dark pink into a piping bag with a large open star tip and the light pink into a piping bag with a small open star tip. Pipe onto the top of the cake into a crescent shape on one side. Then, pipe random dots with the light pink on the sides of the cake.

Rub a tiny bit of buttercream in between your fingers and pick up the heart sprinkles with your finger. They buttercream will allow the sprinkles to stick. Place the sprinkles randomly all over the cake and sprinkle some on top. Slice and serve!

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If you loved this recipe for Dark Chocolate Valentine’s Cake, be sure to check out some of my other recipes like this Classic Vanilla Cake, or my Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies.