Chocolate and Vanilla Five Layer Cake
 
 
A five layer cake with alternate layers of vanilla cake and chocolate cake slathered with chocolate malt buttercream in between and covered with a classica vanilla buttercream frosting. Enough said!
Author:
Recipe type: Cake, Dessert
Serves: one 5 layer 9 inch cake
Ingredients
For the Chocolate Cake Layers:
  • 2½ cups, plus 1 tbsp all purpose flour
  • 3 cups granulated sugar
  • 1 cup, plus 1 tbsp cocoa powder
  • 1 tbsp baking soda
  • 1½ tsp baking powder
  • 1½ tsp salt
  • 3 eggs, room temperature
  • 1½ cups buttermilk, room temperature
  • 1½ cups strong black coffee, hot
  • ¾ cup vegetable oil
  • 1½ tbsp pure vanilla extract
For the Vanilla cake:
  • ⅓ cup butter
  • ½ tsp vanilla
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1¾ cups all purpose flour
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • 1½ tsp baking powder
  • ⅔ cups buttermilk
  • 1 tsp baking soda
for the Malted chocolate frosting:
  • 2 sticks butter, room temperature
  • 2 cups icing sugar, sifted
  • 37.5 gms ovaltine classic malt powder
  • ½ tbsp vanilla extract
  • pinch salt
  • 125 gm dark or semi-sweet chocolate, melted and cooled
  • 60 ml whipping cream
For the Vanilla Frosting:
  • 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened
  • 3-4 cups confectioners' sugar, well sifted
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp vanilla extract
  • upto 4 tbsp milk or heavy cream ( I used heavy cream since we were out of milk)
for lemon sugar syrup: (just boil all till sugar dissolves and let cool a bit)
  • a squirt of fresh lemon juice
  • ½ cup sugar
  • 1 cup water
Instructions
For the chocolate cake layers:
  1. Preheat oven to 350F.
  2. I used two 9 inch pans and prepared them by greasing them, sticking parchment paper and then buttered the parchment paper and sprinkled some cocoa powder. The original recipe uses 3 8 inch cake pans, but since all I had were 9 inch pans I used them and got fewer thicker layers.
  3. In the bowl, sift the dry ingredients.
  4. Combine the eggs, buttermilk, coffee, oil, vanilla in measuring cup and beat lightly with fork.
  5. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and beat 2 minutes on medium speed.
  6. Divide the batter (will be thin).
  7. Bake for 32 minutes, rotating the pans after 20 minutes. Continue to bake until toothpick or skewer comes almost clean (a few crumbs), about 12 more minutes.
  8. Let cake cool in the pans for 20 minutes and then invert them on a wire rack to completely cool.
For the Vanilla cake layers:
  1. Cream butter, add vanilla and sugar and beat till light and fluffy. Add in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
  2. In a separate bowl, sift the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda. Sift 4-5 times.
  3. Add dry ingredients and milk alternately to the creamed butter egg mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Do not over mix.
  4. Bake in a well greased 9 inch pan lined with parchment paper for 35-45 minutes until tester comes out clean.
  5. Allow to cool in pan for 15 minutes, before turning it onto a wire rack to cool completely.
For the malted chocolate frosting:
  1. In a bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with paddle attachment, combine the sugar and butter and beat on the lowest speed for a minute till mixed.
  2. Add the malt powder, vanilla, salt and again beta on low till combined.
  3. Add in the melted and cooled chocolate and beat on medium speed until smooth, about 2 minutes. This is when you will see things shaping up. Resist the temptation to stick your hand in and get a lick of the frosting.
  4. Add the whipping cream and beat on medium high for about a minute.
  5. (This frosting is best used right away.)
For the vanilla frosting:
  1. Beat butter for a few minutes with a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment on medium speed.
  2. Add 3 cups of the powdered sugar and turn your mixer on lowest speed until sugar has been incorporated with butter.
  3. Increase mixer speed to medium and add the vanilla, salt and 2 tbsp cream and beat for 3 minutes. Again resist the temptation to lick the frosting. Well, what the heck, give in. A little lick wont hurt! If the frosting is too stiff, add more cream/milk. if too liquidy, add confectioners' sugar.
Assembly:
  1. Slice horizontally one of the chocolate cake into two.
  2. Place one of the chocolate layer at the bottom. Brush with the lemon sugar syrup. Slather with the malted chocolate buttercream. Slice the vanilla cake into two. And place one half on top of the buttercream slathered chocolate cake.
  3. Brush with syrup and top with the malted chocolate buttercream. Repeat for remaining layers.
  4. You will be left with one half chocolate layers, keep it to make cake balls or eat it like that.
  5. Once assembled, refrigerate till you prepare the vanilla frosting.
  6. Cover the cake with the vanilla frosting. I have learnt the best way to cover a cake is to first do a crumb coat with a part of the frosting and refrigerate the cake for the crumb coat to set. Once set, slather more frosting on and with a flat spatula/ pastry scraper, smooth the frosting out.
  7. For the final decoration I piped a rose on top with the little leftover malted chocolate frosting. You could actually double the recipe and pipe roses all around if you like. I topped with some grated chocolate and then using melted chocolate created the "fire" effect on the sides.
Recipe by The Novice Housewife at https://novicehousewife.com/2013/04/09/chocolate-and-vanilla-five-layer-cake/