Chocolate Sour Cream Cake

Do you ever open your refrigerator and find sour cream left over from your last taco dinner?  Do you then think to yourself, "what am I going to do with this leftover sour cream?  I can't just eat it by the spoonful."  If so, you are the perfect candidate to try out a chocolate sour cream cake.

The above scenario is pretty much exactly what happened to me last week.  If you're not so keen on sour cream, but have some plain yogurt, you could easily substitute that in equal parts.

Sorry for making a non-fruit related dessert in the summer...but, what can I say?  I'm a chocoholic.

Before I hand over the recipe, here are a few tips before we get baking.  

-Measure out all of your ingredients and have them handy

-Prepare anything you can in advance.  This means pre-heating the oven, cutting out parchment circles, softening butter, and buttering your cake pans.

-Use a scale for best results

Chocolate Sour Cream Cake adapted from Completely Delicious

2 or 4 layer 6" round cake

350 F oven

Ingredients

-5/8 c. (140ml) warm/hot coffee

-1/2 c. (55g) cocoa powder + more for dusting cake pans

-1.25 c. (165g) all-purpose flour

-1/2 tsp. sea salt

-1.25 tsp. baking soda

-1 c. sugar (200g)

-2 large eggs

-3/4 c. sour cream (170g)

-1/2 c. (113g) butter, melted

Instructions

1. Brush two 6" cake pans with butter, coat with cocoa powder (you can use flour, but cocoa powder leaves no white residue on the cake).  Cut a piece of parchment to line the bottom of the pans.  Place on top of the coated surface.  

2. Place flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl and whisk together.  

3. In a separate large bowl, use an electric mixer to combine the eggs and sugar until slightly fluffy.  

4. Mix the cream and butter into the egg mixture until fully combined.  

5.  Using a spoon or rubber spatula, stir in the dry mixture until almost combined.  Add hot coffee and stir until fully combined.  

6.  Pour half of the batter into each pan and tap firmly one time to release air bubbles.

7. Bake for 20-25 minutes until no longer wet in the center and a cake tester or toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs.

8. Run a knife around the edge of the pan and invert onto a wire rack.  

American Style Chocolate Buttercream

Ingredients

-2 sticks (227g) softened butter, unsalted

-227g confectioner's sugar

-20g cocoa powder (Whatever kind you have.  You'll notice my cake is two-toned because I used a fancy and non-fancy powder)

-pinch of salt

-milk, to loosen, as desired

Instructions

1. With an electric mixer, beat the butter until fluffy.  Add the sugar, salt, and cocoa and carefully beat until fully incorporated.

2. If you want to loosen the icing for easier application, add 1 T of milk at a time until you've reached desired consistency.

To Assemble

Once your cakes have cooled, use a serrated/bread knife to slice each cake lengthwise into 2 layers.  This will leave you with four layers.  If this gives you too much anxiety, just do 2 thick layers.  In the future, I will try to make a video on how to do this so everyone can be a slicing pro with no fear!

Assemble the layers, adding frosting in between each.  Refrigerate in between stages to help set the buttercream.  Keeping everything cool with help everything go smoothly.  Apply a crumb coat.  Decorate as desired.  I used a star tip and a knife to create the texture on the sides of this cake and the tip of a butter knife to create the texture on top.

If you want a similar effect to mine, use the star tip instead of the round one, but follow the technique in this video.