Chocolate Sour Cream Cake- Scratch Recipe
We are so excited to share this soft, decadent scratch Chocolate Sour Cream Cake recipe with you!
You may have tried a couple of our other favorite chocolate cake recipes including our scratch Classic Chocolate Cake , Chocolate Buttermilk Cake, and our homemade Devil's Food Cake.
However, there is always room for one more chocolate cake recipe!
This rich chocolate cake has a wonderfully moist texture and deep chocolate flavor that is sure to bring rave reviews!
Table of Contents
Versatility of the Recipe
This recipe works perfectly for chocolate sour cream cupcakes as well! In addition, despite the soft texture of the cake, it holds up well to fondant also. In other words, it is the perfect chocolate cake.
Reverse Creaming Method
This recipe calls for the reverse creaming method of mixing. The ingredients are added in a different order than you may be used to, but the resulting cake is velvety soft and delicious!
All of the steps are fully explained in our recipe below, but if you would like more information on the Reverse Creaming of Method of mixing, hop over to this post for additional details and a video: The Reverse Creaming Method of Mixing.
How to Make Chocolate Sour Cream Cake
*You can find the full, printable cake recipe further down in this post. Here is a quick rundown of our steps:
- Heat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and flour three 9 inch round cake pans. I like to line the bottom of the prepared pans with parchment paper as well.
- Next, add the dry ingredients to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix for one minute to blend. (This includes the sugar, flour, unsweetened cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt)
- Add the slightly softened butter a few slices at a time to the flour mixture and mix just until it reaches a crumbly, sandy texture. Be careful not to overmix.
- Next, in a different bowl, combine the full-fat sour cream, eggs, milk, and vanilla extract. Don't add the coffee yet- we will add that later.
- Set a timer for 1 ½ minutes and gradually add half of your egg mixture to your butter/flour mixture while mixing. Start mixer on low speed then increase to medium for the remainder of the 1 ½ minutes.
- Stop mixer, scrape the sides and bottom of bowl with a rubber spatula, and add half of the remaining egg mixture. Mix on medium speed for 20 seconds.
- Next, stop the mixer, scrape down the sides if necessary, and add the last of the egg mixture. Mix for 20 seconds more on medium speed.
- Gradually add the hot coffee to the cake batter and mix for 30 seconds to blend. Batter will be runny but that is okay!
- This recipe makes about 9 ½ cups of batter. Pour batter into three prepared 9″ pans and bake at 325 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes or until the middle of the cake layer springs back to the touch or a toothpick comes out clean (or with just a few crumbs attached).
- After removing from the oven, allow the cakes layers to cool in the pans on a wire rack for about 5 minutes before flipping out.
Frostings to Pair with Chocolate Sour Cream Cake
There are so many frosting and filling recipes that would be amazing with this moist chocolate cake recipe.
Some of our most popular are out go-to Chocolate Buttercream, Peanut Butter Buttercream, Chocolate Buttercream, and Vanilla Buttercream.
Today we decided to pair our chocolate sour cream cake with a billowy and flavorful Seven Minute Frosting.
Seven Minute Frosting
Seven Minute Frosting is a classic recipe that is delightfully airy and not overly sweet.
This luscious cloud-like frosting is light, yet holds stiff peaks very well, making it simple to frost and pipe with. We used this same Seven Minute Frosting recipe in our homemade S'mores Cake!
Its marshmallowy flavor works perfectly with this recipe!
Whether you are looking for a great birthday cake recipe or a cure for your chocolate cravings, you're going to love this recipe.
Recipe FAQs
More Cake Recipes
We have many other cake recipes for you to try that also contain sour cream, including our Chocolate Sour Cream Pound Cake, Chocolate Sour Cream Cake from cake mix and Lemon Sour Cream Pound Cake just to name a few.
Other favorite chocolate cake recipes are our Chocolate Bundt Cake, German Chocolate Cake, Black Forest Cake, and Chocolate Truffle Cake!
Have you made this? We would LOVE for you to leave a ⭐️ rating as well as a comment and photo below! We really appreciate your feedback!
Chocolate Sour Cream Cake- Scratch Recipe
This moist, decadent Chocolate Sour Cream Cake is the perfect scratch chocolate layer cake!
Ingredients
For the Cake
- 2 cups (400g) granulated sugar
- 2 ¾ cups (322g) All Purpose Flour
- 1 cup (82g) unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch processed)
- 2 teaspoons (10g) Baking Soda
- ½ teaspoon (2g) Baking Powder
- ½ teaspoon (2g) Salt
- 1 stick + 5 Tablespoons (185g) Unsalted Butter (I sliced the butter into 1 inch pieces onto waxed paper leaving on the countertop for 8 to 10 minutes. It will still be quite cool when adding to the dry ingredients. You should be able to make a fingerprint when you press the butter. If it becomes too soft, just refrigerate for a few minutes.)
- 1 cup (242g) Sour Cream
- 1 c. (220g) Milk
- 4 eggs room temperature
- 1 teaspoon (4g) vanilla
- 1 cup (220g) Hot Coffee
For the Seven Minute Frosting
- ⅔ cup (150g) water
- 2 cup (400g) granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon (2g) Cream of Tartar or 2 Tablespoon (30g) white corn syrup
- 4 egg whites
- 2 teaspoons (8g) vanilla extract
Instructions
For the Cake
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour three 9 inch pans. This recipe uses the Reverse Creaming Method of Mixing.
- Add dry ingredients to the bowl of your mixer and mix for one minute to blend (sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt)
- Add butter a few slices at a time and mix until it reaches a crumbly, sandy texture. Be careful not to over-mix beyond "sandy" consistency.
- In another bowl, combine sour cream, eggs, milk, and vanilla. Using a fork, mix together. This is all of your wet ingredients except for the coffee, it will be added to the batter later.
- Set a timer for 1 ½ minutes and SLOWLY add half of your egg mixture to your butter/flour mixture while mixing. Start mixer on low speed then increase to medium for the remainder of the 1 ½ minutes. Do Not Mix Above Medium Speed.
- Stop mixer, scrape the sides and bottom of bowl, and add half of the remaining egg mixture. Mix on medium speed for 20 seconds.
- Stop mixer, scrape down the sides if necessary, and add the last of the egg mixture. Mix for 20 more seconds on medium speed.
- Slowly add HOT coffee and mixing for 30 seconds to blend. Batter will be runny but that is okay!
This recipe makes about 9 ½ cups of batter. Pour into 3 prepared 9" pans and bake at 325 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes or until the center of the cake springs back to the touch and a toothpick comes out clean.
For the Frosting
- Make sure the mixing bowl and beaters are clean without a trace of grease. Any grease will keep the egg whites from increasing to full volume.
- Use a separate bowl to separate the eggs. You will be using only the whites and if a yolk happens to break and gets mixed in, the recipe will not work. Place the egg whites into the bowl of your mixer and add the vanilla. Set aside until time to beat the whites.
- In a saucepan, add the water, sugar, cream of tartar (or white corn syrup). Cook on medium/high heat. Do not stir, or stir just enough to distribute the sugar. You don't want sugar crystals sticking to the sides of the pan. The mixture will begin to boil and become clear. After it boils for a minute or so, remove from the heat, you will be able to see that the sugar has dissolved.
- Beat the egg whites and vanilla to the soft peak stage. This happens rather quickly. At soft peak stage, the egg whites will not form peaks but will just fall over, cloud like. At this time, with the mixer beating on low speed slowly pour in a small stream of the hot sugar syrup into the egg whites. Avoid hitting the beaters as you pour because the hot syrup could splash onto you. Increase the mixer to high speed and beat approximately 7 minutes ( it could be longer if using a hand mixer) until stiff peaks form (stiff peaks stand straight up).
- The frosting should be used right away as it sets up rather quickly. The cake can be kept at room temperature or refrigerated. Leftover frosting can be refrigerated or frozen. We found that we did not need to rewhip, but instead just used a fork to lightly stir.
- Makes 10 cups frosting
- (This recipe can be halved. The recipe posted is doubled so that I would have plenty for filling, frosting, and decorative piping).
Hi SaintsBaker, You are correct, 1 cup + 2 Tablespoons for every cup of all purpose flour. I think it will be fine to substitute with cake flour. Hope you will enjoy the cake.
Hi! How should the cake be stored after frosting? Does the frosting suppose to harden? I refrigerated the finished cake, but the frosting began to slowly lose its shape & melt, so that by day 3, there was hardly any between the layers and the entire cake shrank about an inch; the frosting sort of accumulated at the base of the cake. Regardless, the frosting & cake were delicious! Thanks.
Hi Agnes, I'm glad that you enjoyed the cake! This frosting doesn't become firm although it does set. Over the course of 2-3 days it can deflate a bit. (I'm not sure why the cake would shrink after baking unless it was the frosting that deflated?) Thanks for your feedback.
Hi Melissa,
Thanks for the quick reply. I apologize for not being clear....yes, the frosting deflated which lead to a "shorter" cake after a few days. So, to achieve that "light crust", should I store the cake at room temperature? To be honest, the cake will probably be gobbled up within 48 hours!
Hi Agnes, I'm sorry- comment notifications have been landing our spam folder for some reason! Your cake looks great! Unfortunately, 7 minute frosting just doesn't last as long as some of the other frostings.
Leaving the cake at room temperature won't prevent it from deflating after a couple of days. Thanks for your feedback!
I have been wanting to make a cake using square pans. I see that this cake recipe makes a lot of batter and I am wondering would it make enough for three, 8 x 2 inch square pans? Thank you.
Hi Rachel, The recipe makes 9 1/2 cups batter. An 8x2 in square pan can hold 4 cups of batter. If you put just 3 cups of batter in each pan, you would have enough batter as the recipe is written. You would need to increase the recipe by 1/2 to add 4 cups to each pan. You would have a small amount let over.
Thank you.
can I leave out the coffee in this recipe?
Hi Sandy, yes you can use hot water instead!
How long do I bake them for cupcakes, how full should I fill my cupcake pans?
Hi Deb, for cupcakes you can add about 1/4 cup batter per cupcake. Bake at 350 for about 16-18 minutes.
This cake is absolutely fantastic! I made it exactly as written. I just used 2 heart shaped pans as it was Valentines Day. I was able to get about 9 cupcakes also due to my pan sizes. It’s just a delightful texture and taste with the coffee and the 7 min. Frosting was perfect for it! Thank you! I’ll be making this again.
Thanks so much for your feedback, Bruce! So happy to hear that you all loved the cake & frosting- your cake & cupcakes are perfect for Valentine's Day! ;0)