Mint Chocolate Cake

Prep Time: 40 minutes
Cook Time: 35 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour & 15 minutes
Servings: 12 - 14 slices

This chocolate mint cake is a delightful layered treat that captures the flavor of chocolate chip mint ice cream! It's a wonderfully moist chocolate cake, filled with chopped Andes mints and topped off with a delicious chocolate chip mint frosting. You absolutely have to try making it!

Why You’ll Love This Recipe:

One bowl cake recipe! And there’s no mixer needed for the cake layers, just like my triple chocolate cake.
Decadent and impressive. With three layers of fudgy cake and plenty of frosting, this cake makes a perfect celebration dessert. Definitely add the chocolate ganache drip if you want to put things over the top!
You can easily turn it into a mint chocolate chip cake by foregoing the ganache topping and pressing mini chocolate chips into the frosting. I demonstrate this in my video below.
Could be served at Christmas when mint chocolate recipes are particularly popular, but this mint chocolate cake would also make a pretty St. Patrick’s Day dessert with the mint green color and flavor (similar to a Shamrock Shake!).

Ingredients:

2 ⅔ cups (330 g) all-purpose flour
2 cups (400 g) granulated sugar
1 cup (200 g) light brown sugar firmly packed
1 cup (110 g) + 3 Tablespoons Dutch cocoa powder
2 ¼ teaspoons baking soda
1 ¼ teaspoons salt
1 cup (250 ml) neutral cooking oil avocado, canola, or vegetable oil
¾ cup (170 g) unsalted butter melted
3 eggs room temperature preferred
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 ½ cups (355 ml) buttermilk room temperature preferred
¾ cup (180 ml) very hot/boiling coffee may substitute hot water

Frosting:

1 ½ cups (340 g) unsalted butter softened
6 cups (750 g) powdered sugar
2 teaspoons peppermint extract
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon salt
1-4 Tablespoons heavy cream as needed
Mint colored food coloring optional

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F (175C) and grease and flour three 8” (23cm) round pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, sugars, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt until well combined.
2 ⅔ cups (330 g) all-purpose flour,2 cups (400 g) granulated sugar,1 cup (110 g) + 3 Tablespoons Dutch cocoa powder,2 ¼ teaspoons baking soda,1 ¼ teaspoons salt,1 cup (200 g) light brown sugar
Add oil and melted butter and stir until all of the dry ingredients have been moistened. Batter will be thick.
1 cup (250 ml) neutral cooking oil,¾ cup (170 g) unsalted butter
Add eggs and vanilla extract and stir well until batter is smooth and uniform.
3 eggs,2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Gradually add buttermilk, stirring until batter is completely combined.
1 ½ cups (355 ml) buttermilk
Slowly pour hot coffee into the batter and stir until uniform. Be sure to scrape the sides and borrow of the bowl and stir again.
¾ cup (180 ml) very hot/boiling coffee
Evenly divide batter between prepared cake pans (if you’re weighing your cakes you’ll need 700 grams in each cake pan). Bake in center rack of 350F (175C) preheated oven for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of each cake comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs. If your oven bakes unevenly, rotate cakes during baking.
Allow cakes to cool in their pans for 15 minutes, then run a knife along the edge to loosen cakes from pan and carefully invert onto a cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.

Frosting:

In a large mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to beat butter until creamy and smooth.
1 ½ cups (340 g) unsalted butter
Gradually add sugar, about a half cup at a time, using your electric mixer to stir on low-speed until combined before adding the next.
6 cups (750 g) powdered sugar
Once all the sugar is added in, add salt, vanilla, and peppermint extracts and stir until completely combined. If desired, stir in food coloring until desired color is reached.
2 teaspoons peppermint extract,½ teaspoon vanilla extract,¼ teaspoon salt,Mint colored food coloring
Add a Tablespoon of heavy cream, and beat until well incorporated. Add more cream as needed until frosting is smooth, creamy, and easily spreadable.
1-4 Tablespoons heavy cream

Assembly:

Level cakes if needed and evenly cover with frosting. I find it helpful to do a crumb coating, meaning after applying icing between the layers and stacking the cakes I’ll do a very thin layer of frosting around the exterior of the cake then place it in the freezer for 15 minutes (this will catch all the crumbs) then remove and finish decorating the cake with an even layer of frosting. See decorating notes below for more ideas on decorating.

Tips & Notes:

Ganache: For a ganache drip, see my recipe and tutorial on how to do a ganache drip.
Decorative swirls: If you’d like to do decorative swirls on top of the cake (as seen in pictures), you will need to increase the frosting recipe by 50%. I used an Ateco 848 piping tip for piping the swirls in the photo.
Mint chocolate chip cake: As shown in the video, you can forgo the ganache and the decorative swirls and press mini chocolate chips up the side of the cake. They also work nicely as decoration on top of the cake and in between the layers!
Heavy cream: You may substitute milk (non-dairy would also be fine), just note you will need less as it is thinner than cream. The additional liquid is for thinning the frosting and giving it a somewhat light, silky texture.
Storing: Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days or in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. This cake may also be tightly wrapped and frozen for up to 3 months.