Black Velvet Cake

Super soft and fluffy black cocoa cake layers with epic black cocoa cream cheese frosting and a rich chocolate, coconut and pecan filling. This cake is not for the faint hearted chocolate lover!

Jump to:

• Why you'll love this cake
• What is Black Velvet?
• Equipment Notes
• Ingredient Notes for the Cake Layers
• How to Make Black Velvet Cake
• Ingredient Notes for the Cocoa Coconut and Pecan Filling
• How to Make the Filling
• Ingredient Notes for the Black Cream Cheese Frosting
• How to Make the Frosting
• Assembling the BEST Black Velvet Cake
• Expert Tips
• Substitutions and Variations
• Storage Advice
• FAQs
• More Black Cocoa Ideas
• Black Velvet Cake

Why you'll love this cake

• Chocolate cake experts* have described this as the BEST chocolate cake ever. *Full disclosure - those experts are my husband, but if anyone is going to judge chocolate cakes, it would be him!
• Intense natural coloring - no food dyes here! Just a deep dark hue curtesy of the black cocoa.
• Black cocoa cream cheese frosting and chocolate coconut pecan filling in the style of a traditional Southern Red Velvet Cake filling - layer upon layer of pure indulgence!

What is Black Velvet?

If you're familiar with a red velvet cake, you might be thinking - what is black velvet? How's it related to the red variety - are they the same, just a different color? The answer is, essentially, yes.

Both red and black velvet cakes have cocoa in their batter. The key difference is the type and amount of that cocoa.

• Red velvet usually uses standard cocoa powders, which traditionally turn a reddish shade when activated with the vinegar. Nowadays the coloring is aided by a fair bit of food coloring (whether natural or otherwise)!
• Black velvet cake uses black cocoa powder - this is an intensely chocolatey cocoa, that adds to the richness of the cake.

Most people probably wouldn't describe a red velvet cake as a chocolate cake, but black velvet cake is unabashedly extreme chocolate!

Equipment Notes

You don't really need much specialist equipment here, but with all of the fillings, frostings, etc. you will want a fair few bowls and spatulas! I used:

• Silicon cake pans - I prefer silicon as it limits the amount of greasing needed. This is a super delicate cake though, so you'll want to be sure to line any pan you're using. I opted for 7" rounds, but you could make this recipe as 2x 9" cakes or other sizes - baking times may vary.
• Parchment paper - for lining.
• Spatula - I used a couple of spatulas across the different parts of this recipe.
• Hand held electric beaters - you can also use a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment.
• Sieve - for sifting the dry ingredients into your batter.
• Saucepan - for the filling, you'll need to heat some of the ingredients together in a small/medium saucepan.
• Mixing bowls - the cake batter can be made in one large mixing bowl, you'll also need a bowl each for the frosting and the filling.
• Wire rack for cooling cake layers.

Ingredient Notes for the Cake Layers

These cake layers are incredibly light in texture while packing in all the velvety chocolate. You'll need:

• Flour - all purpose flour or plain flour.
• Cornstarch - this helps to lighten the cake layers. You can substitute the combination of flour and cornstarch with cake flour for a similar effect.
• Baking soda - also referred to as bicarbonate soda depending on where you're based.
• Salt
• Black cocoa powder - the star of the show! Black cocoa powder is an intensely dark brown that deepens in color when baked to a midnight black. The taste is richly chocolate and not as harsh as bitter as other cocoas. You can substitute with dutch-processed cocoa powders, but this will impact the overall shade of the cake and taste.
• Sugar - superfine granulated sugar or caster sugar works best here.
• Butter - unsalted butter, softened at room temperature. You can use salted butter, but this will add salt to the overall recipe.
• Eggs - large eggs, ideally at room temperature.
• Vanilla extract
• Warm water - recently boiled, but not boiling.
• Distilled vinegar
• Buttermilk - or soured milk. Try a quick homemade substitute for buttermilk if you've not found any in the grocery store.

How to Make Black Velvet Cake

This is a super simple cake batter to whip up. Follow these instructions:

Step 1: Start out by preheating your oven to 350ºF, grease and line your cake tins. Even if you're using silicon cake pans, I'd recommend lining the base with parchment paper. This is an extremely light and delicate cake and prone to sticking to the bottom.

Step 2: In a large mixing bowl, cream together your sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

Step 3: Next add the vanilla and eggs one at a time. Mix until just combined into a smooth batter.

Step 4: In a small bowl, mix together the cocoa powder and vinegar. This will create a paste and help to activate the cocoa - making this deeper in color and richer in taste. Add this paste to the cake along with the buttermilk.

Step 5: Sift the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. This should be the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt. Mix this until just combined.

Step 6: Slowly add in the warm water, stirring until combined and smooth. This will loosen the batter, so adding and mixing too fast can lead to a mess of batter slushing out of the bowl!

Step 7: Pour the batter into your prepared cake tins and bake in the center of your pre-heated oven until a toothpick comes out clean.

Step 8: Remove from the oven and allow to cool until you are able to handle the pan. Gently remove the cake from the pans - any bits that fall apart can always be stuck together with some of the handy frostings!

Step 9: Set aside to finish cooling while mixing up the filling and frosting.

Ingredient Notes for the Cocoa Coconut and Pecan Filling

Anyone who has had a traditional red velvet cake with coconut pecan filling will know that this filling is the absolute best accompaniment here! And for this recipe, I figured, why not accompany a Black Velvet Cake with a cocoa-filled version? To make this filling, you'll need:

• Sweetened condensed milk - you can also use coconut condensed milk for a fun twist that really pumps the coconut flavors into this filling.
• Butter - unsalted butter, softened at room temperature. Salted butter can also be used, but again will add a saltiness to the final product.
• Sugar - superfine granulated sugar or caster sugar.
• Flour - a couple of tablespoons of all purpose or plain flour helps to thicken the recipe.
• Black cocoa powder
• Coconut - sweetened flaked coconut.
• Pecans - shelled pecan halves, roughly chopped.

How to Make the Filling

I find this filling to be a bit of a dark art. The original recipe for the standard coconut pecan filling was passed down from my granny and had many an omission, hiding the secrets of success. When I readapted it, there have been hits and misses with consistency, though never with flavor.

Step 1: Start by heating the condensed milk, flour and cocoa in a small saucepan over a medium low heat. Whisk until thick and reaches a deep black shade. This is quite quick as the condensed milk will already be fairly thick. Remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

Step 2: In a large bowl beat together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy (about 2-5 minutes).

Step 3: Add the condensed milk mixture to the butter mixture and beat to combine. Your goal is a thick consistency, a bit like a whipped cream.

Step 4: Finally add in the chopped nuts and coconut, folding to combine. The filling is now ready for adding to your cake!

Ingredient Notes for the Black Cream Cheese Frosting

The final piece of this epic Black Velvet Layer Cake is a luscious black cream cheese frosting. Deep dark and naturally black. The longer it sits the deeper the shade becomes!

You'll need:

• Butter - unsalted butter, softened at room temperature. As with the other parts of this recipe, salted butter can be used here, but it will make the frosting a bit on the salty side.
• Cream cheese - this recipe uses spreadable cream cheese, because block cream cheese is not available locally. The spreadable variety offers great flavor, smoothness and requires no extra softening time.
• Powdered sugar - sometimes called icing sugar or confectioners sugar.
• Black cocoa powder - this will give you a deep dark shade and a decadent chocolate flavor.
• Vanilla extract - helps to heighten the flavors in this recipe.
• Milk - a bit of whole or full fat milk will enable you to adjust the consistency here. Add this sparingly to thin the frosting for piping work.

How to Make the Frosting

This is a super simple cream cheese buttercream frosting, following the same process as my Easy Spreadable Cream Cheese Frosting. Luscious, smooth and naturally black thanks to the depth of color offered by the black cocoa powder.

Step 1: Cream the softened butter and cream cheese to loosen it up until smooth.

Step 2: Sift the dry ingredients on to the butter. This is the cocoa powder and powdered sugar. You can do this is a couple of additions to prevent the powders erupting from the mixing bowl!

Step 3: Add the vanilla and a splash of milk, beating until smooth. You can add more milk if necessary for the sake of consistency, but do so sparingly as adding too much will make this runny.

Assembling the BEST Black Velvet Cake

Now that you have all your constituent parts, it's time to bring it all together!

Step 1: Start off with a layer of cake. Place this in the center of your cake plate - you can secure it to the plate with a dollop of cream cheese frosting if you're worried about slippage.

Step 2: Spread a thin layer of the cocoa cream cheese frosting over the surface and the pipe a ring of frosting around the outer rim of the top of the cake layer. This will act as a border for your filling.

Step 3: Fill the ring of cream cheese frosting with about one third of the filling mixture. Spread as evenly as possible.

Step 4: Add another layer of cake on top of the filling and repeat the process of frosting and filling.

Step 5: Add the top layer of cake on and frost the top and sides in a layer of chocolate cream cheese icing. Reserve some of the icing to pipe a border around the top edge of the cake. For this one I tend to make a slightly more decorative finish than the inner borders. Spoon the rest of the filling on top.

Expert Tips

• This cake is super delicate - despite being essentially a death by chocolate experience, it is surprisingly light and not super dense. The nature of the rich cake layers though, does mean that they can be a bit crumbly and difficult to handle. Don't worry too much though - frosting covers all manners of ills!
• While assembling, depending on how warm your kitchen in, you may want to chill the cake to help with structure and stability. This is especially true before adding the final touches - the final piped border and filling on top. Chilling down prior to serving for at least an hour will also help with cutting the cake.

Substitutions and Variations

There are a couple of substitutions worth noting in this recipe:

1. Cake flour instead of flour + cornstarch. If you are one of the lucky ones with a ready supply of cake flour, you can substitute 2 cups of cake flour for the combination of all purpose and cornstarch in this recipe. This is really down to ingredient availability and isn't a huge difference to the bake.
2. Cocoa powder instead of black cocoa powder. The black cocoa makes this a Black Velvet Cake, but black cocoa can be difficult to come by. If you can't find it, you can substitute with dutch processed cocoa for a similarly rich chocolate cake (though personally the black cocoa does also add flavor here!). The cake, frosting and filling will not be as deep a shade, but you could top it up with black food coloring if desperate. Just be careful - liquid food coloring in particular will water things (especially frostings) down!
3. Condensed coconut milk versus sweetened condensed milk. This is one of my favorite variations! Using canned sweetened condensed coconut milk adds that little extra coconut punch to the filling that just takes this over the edge. Again, it's a bit hard to come by depending on where you are, but worth a try if you can find it!

Storage Advice

Due to the amount of dairy in the frosting and filling, especially the cream cheese, this cake should be kept in the refrigerator. Flavors do tend to come more alive nearer room temperature though, so I prefer to take the cake out about 5-10 minutes before serving.

FAQs

More Black Cocoa Ideas

• Halloween Cinnamon Rolls
• Spider Web Black Cocoa Brownies