Ultimate Chocolate Birthday Cake

topsy turvy 3When I watched Ina Garten and Tyler Florence collaborate on this birthday cake for Tyler’s 7-year-old son Hunter, two things occurred to me. The first being, what an odd and unlikely duo! How did Ina and Tyler even come together on this project in the first place? My second thought was, what a cool idea for a birthday cake. For some reason, I only associate stacked cakes with weddings. This off kilter, cake was perfect to help celebrate my youngest son’s birthday. He turned 23 at the end of April.1 slice cI didn’t use Ina’s recipe because I have a favourite go-to recipe. It was created by Noreen Gilletz, slightly adapted by me, and comes together in the food processor in a few short minutes. It is the moistest chocolate cake I have ever tried. Deep, dark  intense chocolate flavour with a fudgy dense texture. Half a cup of strong coffee enhances the chocolate flavour.cake mise en placeinto food processorready to bakeThe deep dark chocolate buttercream is the genius creation of Nila over at www.thetoughcookie.comchocolate buttercreamI had some leftover salted caramel buttercream from making macarons so I sandwiched the layers with it, and frosted the top and sides with the chocolate buttercream. If you don’t feel like preparing two kinds of buttercream, it is still fantastic with just chocolate buttercream.salted caramel buttercream between layersYou will need two round 8-inch, two round 6-inch and two round 4-inch cake pans, as well as some cardboard cake circles.ready to frosticing cake 2ready to stacktopsy turvy 1 625If the thought of building this Topsy Turvy cake makes you nervous, just make a double layer 9-inch traditional cake. It’s still very special and quite beautiful.Let's party 13 slices 2

Click here to print recipe for Topsy Turvy Chocolate Birthday Cake.

Click here to print recipe for Perfect Chcolate Birthday Cake.

Click here to print recipe for Salted Caramel Buttercream 2.

2 slices 625 sq

7 thoughts on “Ultimate Chocolate Birthday Cake

  1. Michelle Marcotte

    Hi, This looks wonderful. I would love to read a discussion about why it is necessary to use unsalted butter instead of salted butter in these recipes for baked goods. I never have unsalted butter available, but always have salted butter, so I usually just use it. Why would unsalted butter be better?

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  2. Corrie Gancman

    Jamie must’ve loved this! cake! It looks like so much fun! Hard to believe that both our Jamie babies are 23.

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  3. Linda M.

    First off Happy belated Birthday and can’t believe he is already 23! This cake is just so whimsical you can’t help but feel happy looking at it. On of the most delicious cakes I have made and it was so fun when my kids separated 10 packs of Smarties to decorate!

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