Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting
The BEST Yellow Cake Recipe with Milk Chocolate Frosting. 5-Star Rated Recipe!
I was one of those kids that were counting down the minutes at my birthday party until I could blow out the candles and eat my big ol birthday cake. I wanted a piece with a thick layer of homemade chocolate frosting.
This is literally the best yellow cake recipe. It is so flavorful, moist, and buttery! The homemade chocolate frosting is insanely rich and creamy and pairs perfectly with the homemade yellow cake.
It's New Year's Eve so let's go out of 2016 with a huge yellow cake with chocolate buttercream because I see only green smoothies in my future....
If you read my last post about making a homemade yellow cake -- Homemade Yellow Butter Cake, I went through many experiments to bring you these cake recipes. My pants just got tighter in an effort to bring you the perfect cake!
We had large cake testings to determine the winners of the unofficial homemade yellow cake recipe challenge.
The path to the Yellow Birthday Cake with Milk Chocolate Frosting...
The recipe that I posted a few days ago is for a traditional yellow butter cake. I wanted to change it up a little and experiment with adding in some vanilla pudding mix. Since it is known to add a good amount of moisture to a cake, I was excited to see how it would affect the final product.
It not only made a denser, moister cake but also a flavorful one as well. It's a small amount of pudding but was still a big difference-maker. This is truly THE BEST YELLOW CAKE EVER.
The chocolate buttercream recipe is one that I played with over the years and is now my go-to recipe. It has the perfect balance of rich chocolate, butter, and powdered sugar and isn't over the top sweet. It truly is the greatest chocolate frosting. If you are a chocolate cake lover, you must try my Love at First Sight Chocolate Cake.
Add some colorful sprinkles to this Yellow Birthday Cake with Milk Chocolate Frosting if you want to make kids really happy.
Here are my favorite baking pans -- USA Bakeware Round Cake Pan 8 inch and USA Bakeware Round Cake Pan 9 inch.
A Wilton Angled Icing Spatula is the perfect tool to use to frost this cake.
Yellow Birthday Cake with Milk Chocolate Frosting
Ingredients
- 4 Large Eggs
- ⅔ cup Whole Milk or Buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla
- 2 ¼ cups Flour
- 1 ½ cups Sugar
- 2 teaspoons Baking Powder
- ¾ teaspoon Salt
- 1 cup Butter softened, cut into cubes
- 2 Tablespoons Oil
- ⅓ cup Vanilla Pudding Mix instant
Chocolate Buttercream Frosting:
- 1 ½ cups Butter softened
- 1 cup Cocoa
- 5 cups Powdered Sugar
- ⅓ cup Cream Half n Half or Milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a small bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, and vanilla.
- In a standing mixer, stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
- Beat the butter into the flour mixture, one cube at a time. Continue to beat until it resembles coarse crumbs.
- Add the ½ of the egg-milk mixture and oil and beat the batter is light and fluffy. Add remaining egg-milk mixture and vanilla pudding and mix just until combined.
- Take a spatula and scrape the sides of the bowl.
- Spread into greased 8 or 9-inch cake pans and smooth tops with a spatula.
- Bake for 16-22 minutes, depending on the depth of pans. If the cake layers are thin, they will cook for less time than the thicker layers.
- Let cakes cool. Run a knife around edge of cake pan and flip over. Frost with milk chocolate frosting.
- To make Chocolate Buttercream Frosting:
- In mixing bowl, cream together butter, cocoa, powdered Sugar, and cream until light and fluffy. You may want to add more cream or milk depending on consistency. Once the cake has cooled and has been removed from pans, frost each layer with frosting.
- Top with chocolate shavings, chocolate chips, sprinkles, M & M's or whatever your heart desires.
Video
Notes
- This recipe makes two 9-inch cake layers or three 8-inch cake layers. If you use three 8-inch cake pans, the layers will be thinner and will cook for less time.
- This is one baked good that gets even better the next day, if covered.
Happy Baking, my friends! xo
Didi M
I was looking to use this for cupcakes. Have you done it before?
Pam
I just found this recipe and made it for my Mom’s birthday this past weekend. Everyone loved it! It is so moist and flavorful. This will definitely be my go to yellow cake.
Francine Phillips
It took much longer to bake than recipe indicated. What was your baking time. I had 2 8 inch pans??
Monica
This will be the third year my husband requests this cake for his birthday, Even the chocoholics of our family die for this cake! AND the cake really does get better after a day or two…. Thanks for your amazing recipe!
Carolynn Van Namen
I’ve tried many other yellow cake recipes to no avail. This one is perfect! It’s moist and tasty, rose perfectly and the frosting was great. I used buttermilk in the cake and added a splash of vanilla to the frosting, along with 1/2 tsp of instant espresso powder. Kicked up the flavor intensely! Yes, took closer to 30 mins to bake. This will become my go-to recipe for yellow cake going forward. Thank you!
Aleks Jones
I found this recipe very tasty! The chocolate buttercream was silky, but I thought the cake was a little dense. If you prefer a moister cake, I would recommend using buttermilk instead of milk. Overall, pretty good!
Cathie A. Anderson
Should vanilla be added to the frosting recipe? By the way, your recipes are my go-to's when I want to try something new. Needless to say, this has created quite a few favorites for me and my family - THANK YOU!
Criss
VERY DELICIOUS. THIS IS DEFINATELY A KEEPER. Thank you ModernHoney
Nadine
I baked for my husbands birthday. He loves yellow cake with chocolate frosting. This is a great easy recipe. I used Dutch cocoa powder which made the frosting so wonderful. I used 9-inch pans and cooking time was around 30 min. He loved the cake. Too bad we are getting over Covid and his taste buds aren't 100%. I'll be baking this again in the future.
Andrea
Do you add just the vanilla pudding mix powder itself or the prepared pudding? Thanks!
Modern Honey
Hi there! You just add the pudding mix powder straight from the box. 🙂
Lindsey
How do you store the cake? My icing turned out pretty runny. Would it help if I put it in the refrigerator?
Nadine A Chuba
Did you use butter or margarine? Too much liquid maybe. It's not a runny frosting. Mine was really thick. I had to add more cream in order to make it spreadable. Next time if too runny add more powdered sugar.
Lara
Delicious cake! I baked the batter in three 6x2" pans and baked for almost 40 minutes and they rose up beautifully! I did feel the cake was kind of dense. I wish the instructions detailed how long to mix the flour-butter mixture with the first half of the wet ingredients. I didn't try the frosting, so can't comment on it!
Lara
Are we supposed to use all-purpose flour or can we use cake flour? I'm excited to try this recipe. I've heard that using AP flour with the reverse creaming method results in a tough cake?
Christopher
This is my favorite yellow cake by far! But does anyone else question the baking times? I used two 9 inch pans and it took closer to 30 minutes.
Havanna Kean
Me too... The cake was still spongy. Did you add the whole small box of Jello?
V. John Kennedy
Hi, Yes, my baking time was similar- 30-35 minutes.
Cassie
Yes, I have been making this cake for my son's birthday for years, and it's the best yellow cake recipe I've found. But the baking time is almost double!
Abigail Wenderson
Wow, such a great recipe, looking forward to try this on weekend. Thanks for sharing.
Heidi
Hello! Is there a possible substitute for the vanilla pudding? 🙂
Kathy
I've made this cake and your love at first bite chocolate cake many times, both are awesome. They are my family go-to birthday cakes! But now I need to make a strawberry cake. I was thinking of using this vanilla cake as my base and adding strawberry puree as I've seen in a few recipes. Do you have a suggestions on four or other alterations if I add a cup of the puree?
Stacie
Lovely cake as written! I’ve made many a yellow\ white cakes which come out dry or heavy. I’d say this is a perfect yellow birthday cake...for any day of the week ???? thanks modern honey!!
Shannon
Should the butter be salted or unsalted??
Jessica GLOVER
She said in an older post she used salted in this recipe
john
Can you use a bundt pan for this recipe and if so what would you change in recipe? I like the idea of incorporating the pudding mix. How about using a bundt pan for your cupcake recipes?
Thanks...
Jamie
I was about to ask the same thing. Making a little birthday cake for my friend's husband to surprise her with on her birthday trip...
lisa
Hello Modern Honey have you made this with cake flour I know that it is a finer mill, and what would be the measurements for the cake flour if so, and would that mess up the recipe or would that make it more moist and softer.
Thank you ???? so very much,
please i would like to know before the holidays
Nicole
Hi Lisa, did you ever happen to use cake flour? I make the recipe as is and it's my favorite, but I would like to try it with cake flour.
McKenzie
I made it with cake flour and it came out fine