Are you team chocolate cake with vanilla frosting or team vanilla cake with chocolate frosting? I find myself flip flopping between the two almost every birthday. Can I just say I am team cake and go with that?
Today for St. Patrick's Day (and yes, also my birthday, which feels vain to talk about on my own blog..) I am bringing you a super casual, chocolate sheet cake with green frosting. There is nothing that makes this applicable to St. Patrick's Day at all except that it is green, but it is definitely birthday worthy because it is cake.
I was intimidated by watercolor cakes until I found out how simple they are to create. There is no right or wrong way to do them, and if they don't turn out perfect (mine certainly isn't!) it still looks cool because you made an effort past simply dumping a can of frosting on top of a box mix cake.
If you follow on my instagram or stories then you know I was in Venice, Italy this week! Wow!!! It was incredible! I am back home now and have been up since about around 4 AM (thanks jet lag) but thankfully I am getting around to writing this post for you, as I originally meant to post it before I left.
I can't wait to edit all of the photos and share with you a short guide of everything we did there. It is a beautiful thing exploring the world, but I am so grateful actually to be home and spend my birthday here with my dogs (haha...I missed them!).
What makes this chocolate sheet cake so special? It has vinegar in it! Sounds weird, but trust me it works.
Using vinegar in cakes is something that became popular during the Great Depression when other ingredients were scarce. It also makes the cake lighter and fluffier when paired with the baking soda. You won't taste the vinegar at all. :)
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Chocolate Vinegar Sheet Cake with Watercolor Buttercream
makes one 9x13 cake
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, softened
- 2 cups sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup boiling water
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 tbl vinegar
for the vanilla buttercream
- 1 cup (2 sticks) softened butter
- 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 tbl milk
- green food coloring (or a mix of blue and yellow) I like to use India Tree food coloring as it is all natural!
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x13 cake pan with butter and dust with cocoa powder.
Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in the eggs, and mix.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cocoa powder, and salt.
Add dry ingredients to the butter and egg mixture and stir until just combined. Add in the boiling water, and mix slowly until combined. Add the vanilla and vinegar, and stir until batter is smooth.
Bake in preheated oven for 22 - 27 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool completely before frosting.
for the frosting
Beat the butter with the powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk until completely smooth and fluffy. Scoop out approx 1/4 cup of frosting each into three separate bowls (or more, depending on if you want more than three colors), and add food coloring to each bowl of frosting to get desired shade of green.
To frost the cake, first add the vanilla butter cream to the top of the cooled cake and spread with a spatula until slightly smooth. Dab the colored buttercream in spots across the top of the cake (be as random as you like with this!), and then run a spatula across the top to smooth it out. Don't go too crazy at this point, as the more you smooth it the colors with begin to blend together too much.