6 inch Chocolate Cake and Ermine Buttercream Recipe - 7th Birthday Cake

6 inch Chocolate Cake and Ermine Buttercream Recipe

There are so many good things that I can tell you about Ermine Buttercream. Yes, it is a little time-consuming but it is perhaps the best buttercream that I have tasted. It is not too overbearingly sweet and spreads and pipes pretty well. And for a person who cannot handle too much sweet, it is a win-win situation all around. 

I made this 6 inch Chocolate Cake and Ermine Buttercream Recipe cake for my now 7 year old's 7th birthday.  I halved my trusty Chocolate Mousse Cake recipe to make this cake, filled and iced it with Ermine Buttercream. I wanted to try out the dual tone on this cake, and though not too successful, it didn't look half as bad!

For his birthday party, we made a Star Wars BB8 Cake (yup, we still cannot believe that we pulled it off!). I had made a double batch of the Ermine Butter Cream and used the leftovers for the BB8 Cake as well.

His birthday was on a school day. In the morning before leaving for school, he Skyped with his grandparents, while eating his favorite breakfast of waffles & sausage & scrambled eggs. While he was away at school, I baked and frosted this cake for him, did a quick dual tone icing and propped his Star Wars toys (washed and dried) on it. Easy peasy, right! I had to save my energy for the second cake!

That afternoon we picked him up school, and went for his tennis lessons, where his coach made it a point to celebrate his birthday and make him feel extra special! Once we were back home, his friends from the neighborhood came over and he cut his cake.

After a pizza dinner from his favorite pizza place, the happy camper went to bed with a new book! Little did he know that he had a whole surprise birthday party planned over the weekend!

Ingredients for 6 inch Chocolate Cake - (Makes two 6 inches cake, I used my 6 inch by 3 inch cake pan instead of two 6 inch pans)

• All Purpose Flour - 3/4 Cup
• Sugar - 1/2 Cup
• Baking Powder - 1/2 tsp
• Baking Soda - 1/2 tsp
• Salt - 1/4 tsp
• Instant Coffee Granules - 1/2 tsp
• Chocolate Chips - 1/2 Cup (I used semi-sweet chocolate chips)
• Butter - 1/2 Cup, 1 stick, unsalted and at room temperature
• Sour Cream - 1/2 Cup, at room temperature
• Eggs - 2, large, at room temperature 
• Vanilla Extract - 1 tsp

Click here to find out how to bake the cake. It took me about 40 minutes to bake it since I was baking it in one pan. If you are using 2 pans, make sure to check after the 25 minute mark.

Ermine Buttercream

Ingredients for Ermine Buttercream

1/3 Cup of All Purpose Flour

1 Cup or 2 sticks of salted butter, softened at room temperature

1 Cup of Milk

1 Cup of Granulated Sugar

2 tsp of vanilla extract

In a saucepan, cook flour, milk and sugar on low heat while whisking continuously. Once it comes to a boil and starts bubbling and reaches a pudding like consistency, take it off the heat and transfer to a medium sized bowl. Cover it with a cling wrap with the cling wrap touching the flour-mix to keep the skin from forming. Once it cools down, add softened butter, couple of tablespoons at a time while beating with a electric mixer till the buttercream become soft, light and fluffy.

Chill for 20 minutes before using it to pipe on cupcakes or frost your cake. Store leftovers in the fridge.