Smash Cake Recipe
Layers of moist vanilla and chocolate cake layered with creamy chocolate whipped cream frosting! The best smash cake recipe plus step-by-step tutorial.
Servings: 12 servings
Calories: 340kcal
Equipment
- Two 6"x2" cake pans
- 1M piping tip and piping bag
Ingredients
Smash Cake
- 3 ounces hot water
- 1 ounce cocoa powder
- 7 ounces Cake Flour
- 5 ounces granulated sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 2 ounces vegetable oil
- 5 ounces buttermilk room temperature or slightly warm
- 3 ounces unsalted butter room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Chocolate Whipped Cream
- 12 ounces heavy whipping cream cold
- 2 ounces powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 Tablespoons Hershey's chocolate syrup or sifted cocoa powder
- 1 package Oetkers whipped cream stabilizer
Instructions
Smash Cake Recipe
- Combine the cocoa powder with the hot water and whisk until smooth. Set aside to cool.
- Combine half the buttermilk with the vegetable oil and set aside.
- Add the egg and vanilla to the remaining buttermilk and whisk to combine. Set aside.
- Into the bowl of your stand mixer with the paddle attachment attached, add in your flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda and mix for 10 seconds to combine.
- While mixing on low, add in your softened butter and mix until the mixture looks like coarse sand.
- While mixing on low, add in your buttermilk/oil mixture and mix for 2 minutes to develop the cakes structure.
- Scrape the bowl and then continue mixing on low while slowing drizzling in the buttermilk/egg mixture until cohesive.
- Divide the cake batter in half and add the chocolate mixture to half the vanilla cake batter and stir to combine.
- Coat two 6"x2" cake pans with cake goop or another preferred pan release. Fill one pan with the vanilla mixture and the other with the chocolate.
- Bake your cakes at 350ºF for 25-30 minutes or until the cake bounces back when you touch the top.
- Let your cakes cool in the pan until they are barely warm to the touch but not cold.
- invert your cakes onto a cooling rack to cool the rest of the way. I put my cakes in the freezer for 30 minutes (on the cooling rack) so they can cool down further and are easier to handle while stacking the cake. Watch my video above to see how to stack and decorate.
Chocolate Whipped Cream
- Combine your heavy cream and powdered sugar, vanilla and stabilizer (optional) in the bowl of your stand mixer with the whisk attachment.
- Mix on medium until you start to see soft peaks form.
- Add in your chocolate syrup and mix until combined. Do not over mix. Whipped cream should hold it's shape but still be very soft. It will continue to whip and become more stable as you frost the cake.
Video
Notes
- Make sure your eggs, buttermilk, and butter are all room temperature before you make your cake or the cake won't combine properly.
- Chill your cakes before stacking and frosting
- Don't overwhip your whipped cream so that it stays nice and smooth
- You can omit the chocolate if you want your cakes to be vanilla or you can double the chocolate if you want all the cake batter to be chocolate instead of vanilla.
- If you’re in the UK search for Shipton mills soft cake and pastry flour or flour that has a protein level of 9% or less. Doing the cornstarch and AP flour trick will not work for this cake, it is formulated specifically with the reverse creaming method to use cake flour.
Nutrition
Serving: 1cup | Calories: 340kcal | Carbohydrates: 32g | Protein: 5g | Fat: 23g | Saturated Fat: 15g | Cholesterol: 86mg | Sodium: 109mg | Potassium: 169mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 17g | Vitamin A: 658IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 73mg | Iron: 1mg
