It’s Halloween so why not making something fun like this Black Velvet Cake?

I think I mention this every time, but I love when people include the ingredients and amounts in the instructions section! I’ve noticed the last two recipes I’ve made included a toggle button called “Cook Mode” when you’re looking at the recipe on your phone so the screen doesn’t go dark. Not sure who came up with that but I love it.

Anyway, the cake portion of this recipe isn’t difficult. You mix your dry ingredients, wet ingredients, and then mix those together and add the hot coffee. I scooped the batter into three 6 inch cake pans and popped it in the oven. It’s a little hard to see when these are done since they’re so dark so just keep an eye on them and watch for the cakes to spring back when you lightly tough the top. I made these the day before and once they were cool I wrapped them and put them in the fridge.

I ran out of black cocoa powder after making the cake and could not find it anywhere so I had to order online. There was a chance it wouldn’t arrive before I needed to make the frosting, but I went ahead and ordered just in case and thankfully it did arrive!

For the frosting, be sure to set out the cold ingredients so they can come to room temperature. The tips say you can microwave the sour cream a little so it’s not too cold and I did that just in case since I didn’t want the chocolate to seize up. I used a 70% chocolate as well since that’s what I had in the house and I did use a little black food coloring to help deepen the color. The frosting takes a little bit of time since you make it and then set it in the fridge to cool some (stirring every 15 minutes). I got sidetracked making dinner so it was probably close to 45 minutes before I got it back out and by then it was a little thick. I probably should have popped it in the microwave briefly or let it sit out, but I was on a time crunch so I just went with it. As a result, my frosting was a little thick and hard to spread so it wasn’t even and didn’t look as pretty as I’d hoped.

Cutting into the cake was fun and it looked really cool being all black. I felt like the cake was a little dense and in hindsight that might be because I mixed it too much so that’s why it’s ranked a little lower. I’ll have to try again to see if I can get a fluffier cake. The frosting was delicious though! Visually, I felt like my decorating could have been prettier so that’s why I ranked it lower as well. Had my frosting been a little less thick I think it would have looked a lot better! Very fun bake!

Baking Ease	10
Time Spent	10
Taste	9
Visual	8

Recipe Used: The Cozy Plum