Mint Chocolate Cake
If mint chocolate chip is your go-to ice cream flavor, you are going to absolutely LOVE this mint chocolate cake! It starts with rich, moist, fudgy chocolate cake layers and is finished with a light and refreshing mint buttercream. It’s a bit different from the usual peanut butter chocolate cake or German chocolate cake, and I just love it! I like to color the frosting mint green to be reminiscent of the classic ice cream, but it will still taste just as good without the food coloring. With the pretty mint green color, this cake would be perfect for St. Patrick’s Day!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
One bowl cake recipe! And there’s no mixer needed for the cake layers, just like my triple chocolate cake. Decadent and impressive. With three layers of fudgy cake and plenty of frosting, this cake makes a perfect celebration dessert. Definitely add the chocolate ganache drip if you want to put things over the top! You can easily turn it into a mint chocolate chip cake by foregoing the ganache topping and pressing mini chocolate chips into the frosting. I demonstrate this in my video below. Could be served at Christmas when mint chocolate recipes are particularly popular, but this mint chocolate cake would also make a pretty St. Patrick’s Day dessert with the mint green color and flavor (similar to a Shamrock Shake!).
Ingredients
This isn’t your average chocolate cake recipe, so there are a few more ingredients below than you’d normally see. Let’s go over a few before we dig in.
Dutch cocoa. I love the way Dutch cocoa complements the creamy mint flavor of the frosting. If you can only find natural cocoa, I recommend making my chocolate cake instead (you can divide it into 3 pans and bake it as indicated below). Peppermint extract. Don’t use mint extract! Mint extract tends to lend a toothpaste-y taste instead of a classic mint flavor. In fact, I use peppermint extract in all of my mint recipes, like my thin mints, butter mints, and the mint chocolate cookies I just shared. Buttermilk. There are some instances where I recommend real buttermilk over my buttermilk substitute, but this mint chocolate cake recipe is not one of them. So, if you don’t feel like buying a quart of buttermilk, just make the substitute instead! Unsalted butter. Yes, that’s a lot of butter! This is a big three-layer cake, and we are making both the cake and the frosting, so it’s necessary. We’ll melt the butter for the cake and use softened butter for the frosting, and both should be unsalted. Hot coffee. This won’t make your mint chocolate cake taste like coffee, but it will make the chocolate flavor much more intense. I don’t personally drink coffee, so I keep some instant coffee on hand for recipes like this one. If you don’t have either, you can just use very hot water.
SAM’S TIP: Do not use baking powder in this recipe! Baking powder and baking soda are not interchangeable; I talk more about this in my baking powder vs. baking soda post. Remember, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Make Mint Chocolate Cake
Make the Cake Layers
Make the Mint Frosting & Decorate
SAM’S TIP: If you are new to decorating cakes, check out my guide on how to decorate a cake for beginners. It outlines the entire process of decorating a cake like this one and even includes a how-to video if you are more of a visual learner. If you love mint and chocolate together but don’t want to make quite so much effort, try my mint chocolate chip cookies! Enjoy! Let’s bake together! Subscribe to my newsletter to be notified of all the newest recipes, and find my free recipe tutorials on YouTube 💜
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