3 Tier Chocolate Cake

Decorate a colourful 3 Tier Chocolate Cake

Posted by Emily B.

About

If you have a few hours available (this doesn’t need to be all in one go) and some patience when it comes to decorating, then this cake might be the one for you. It tastes delicious and looks fantastic as a centre piece for parties. Admittedly, I did not have a party to take said cake to but had been wanting to try the design out for a while so thought, why not!

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You Will Need (14 things)

  • Cake

  • 300 g Butter
  • 300 g Caster Sugar
  • 6 Eggs
  • 300 g Self-Raising Flour
  • 3 tsp Baking Powder
  • 70 g Cocoa Powder

  • Buttercream (you will need 2 batches of this)

  • 300 g Butter
  • 800 g Icing Sugar
  • 2 tsp Vanilla Essence
  • 3 tbsp – 6 tbsp Milk
  • Gel Food Colouring – pink, blue, purple (you could mix pink and blue)
  • Sprinkles for decoration

Steps (14 steps, 60 minutes)

  1. 1

    Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees (fan) and grease 3 cake tins with butter.

    To make the cake, first cream the butter and sugar.

  2. 2

    Whisk the eggs into the butter and sugar mixture.

  3. 3

    Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder. Fold into the butter, sugar and egg mixture.

  4. 4

    When the mixture is fully combined, split into the 3 cake tins. I only had 2 tins so did this in 2 stages.

  5. 5

    Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until the cake is cooked through (check with a cake tester). Allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

  6. 6

    Whilst the cake is cooling, make the first batch of buttercream.

    Whisk 300g butter for at least 5 minutes. Add the vanilla essence and whisk for a further minute.

  7. 7

    Sift the icing sugar slowly into the whisked butter. Do this in at least 4 stages and whisk after each addition. Add the milk slowly and whisk after each tablespoon. Mine needed the full 6 to create a strong but spreadable buttercream.

  8. 8

    Spread a little buttercream onto a cake stand, plate or turn table and stick your first cake layer to this. Make sure the cake is fully cooled before you do this.

  9. 9

    Pipe the buttercream onto the cake using a piping bag and large round nozzle. Stick the second layer on and repeat for the third layer.

  10. 10

    Pipe buttercream onto the top layer and the sides. Smooth out the buttercream using a palette or spatula. Don’t worry if the sides are showing, this will be covered by the coloured buttercream. Leave the cake to set in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

  11. 11

    Whilst the cake is cooling, make the second batch of buttercream. You can also have a break at this point (I did for a while).

    Repeat steps 6 and 7 but only add 3 tbsp milk.

  12. 12

    Split the buttercream into 3 bowls and mix with the 3 food colouring gels. Make them bright or pastel (I added a little more to the purple after this picture as I wanted an even brighter colour).

    Tip: Mix a small amount of buttercream and food colouring gel first to achieve a really concentrated colour before adding to the whole bowl of buttercream. This helps the colour to mix better.

  13. 13

    Using 3 piping bags and 3 different shaped nozzles, pipe a random pattern all over the sides and top of the cake.

    Add silver sprinkles to the centre of any flower you may have created and scatter colourful sprinkles around the edges and the bottom of the cake. You could also add a few to the middle.

  14. 14

    Finished

    Your cake is ready to eat straight away!