Cinnamon Chocolate Cake with Honey Buttercream

Cinnamon Chocolate Cake is intensely chocolatey with a hint of spice. This fudgy cake pairs so well with the piquant, mellow sweetness that is salted honey buttercream. This layer cake is hard to resist any time of year but the spice and the honey frosting are so perfectly in tune with the cooler months.

I am a sucker for a layer cake. Especially when it involves chocolate and buttercream. So to celebrate my birthday a few weeks ago I baked this cinnamon chocolate cake with salted honey buttercream (gasp).

It’s been on the cards for a while and I think I’ve shown remarkable restraint right through January by impatiently waiting for February to roll around along with a good excuse to bake it. 

Now the waiting is over I’m jumping straight into the details, beginning with the salted honey buttercream.

What is Salted Honey Buttercream?

Quite simply, this honey frosting is a rich and delicious buttercream that has been flavoured with both honey and sea salt.

I always use a deep, amber coloured honey and pound the sea salt to a fine powder using a pestle and mortar so it blends into the frosting evenly and without adding a grainy texture to it.

Without a doubt, this honey frosting is the finest buttercream I’ve ever made. Sweet it most definitely is, but it’s also mellow, thanks to the honey. And there’s a slight twang of saltiness to give it a savoury edge.

Bundled up with the chocolate and cinnamon spice, honey buttercream is a grown-up topping that is sure please in this chocolate cinnamon cake.

How to Make Cinnamon Chocolate Cake

The actual cinnamon chocolate cake teams its headline flavours up with dark muscovado sugar and buttermilk.

The result is a dark, soft and fudgy cake with an intense chocolate flavour and a hint of warming spice. It’s rather like a pound cake, but a little fudgier.

This cake pairs with the salty-sweet honey frosting perfectly.

It is also easy to make:

• Grease and line 3 x 6-inch baking tins with baking parchment and preheat the oven
• Put the chocolate into a small heatproof bowl and gently melt the chocolate in the microwave (or over a bain-marie). Set aside
• Weigh the flour, cocoa, baking powder & cinnamon into a bowl
• In another bowl cream the butter and sugar together using electric beaters until fluffy and paler in colour.
• Beat in the eggs, one at a time
• Sieve half of the flour mixture into the batter and blend, stir in the buttermilk, milk and vanilla extract and then sieve in the remaining flour and mix until just combined
• Take a heaped tablespoon of the cake batter and quickly mix it into the melted chocolate then quickly blend this mixture back into the rest of the cake batter
• Divide the batter between the cake tins & bake
• Let the cake cool in the tins for 2 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack. Peel off the baking parchment from the bottom of each sponge cake and let cool completely

How to Make Honey Buttercream

It’s very easy to make this honey frosting too:

• Use a pestle and mortar to crush the sea salt to a powder
• Using electric beaters whip the butter and icing sugar together – add the icing sugar 1 tablespoon at a time
• Beat in the honey, followed by ½ of the powdered salt
• Taste – add more powdered salt to suit tastes

Tip: it is essential to add the salt a little at a time, tasting after each addition until you reach a level of saltiness you are happy with. Use my salt quantity as a guide only – you may prefer more, less or none at all:

Once the cakes are completely cool, sandwich the layers together with the buttercream.

Tip for Using Muscovado Sugar

Just a quick word of warning about muscovado sugar. It has an annoying tendency to harden and form lumps when stored. Do make sure you remove any clumps of sugar before baking commences. If you leave those lumps in, your cake will be prone to sugary holes (but it will still taste amazing).

The Kitchn has some good advice for dealing with these lumps – I went with apple slices in the container and it worked well.

This chocolate cake with cinnamon smothered in salted honey frosting is a marvellous option for winter bakes. All of the flavours it includes are homely, comforting and deeply enticing. Cut yourself a slice and snuggle up with a cosy blanket, a mug of steaming tea and a good book. 

If you’ve enjoyed this cinnamon chocolate cake you might like my other layer cake recipes. Highlights in this collection for chocoholics include:

• Chocolate & Vanilla Malted Milkshake Cake with Italian Buttercream
• Matcha Cake with White Chocolate Mascarpone Buttercream
• Triple Chocolate Layer Cake

Cinnamon Chocolate Cake with Salted Honey Buttercream

Jane Coupland

Intensely chocolatey with a hint of spice this soft, fudgy Cinnamon Chocolate Cake pairs so well with the piquant, mellow sweetness that is salted honey buttercream.

5 from 6 votes

Print Pin Rate

Course: Baking

Cuisine: Worldwide

Prep Time: 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes minutes

Total Time: 55 minutes minutes

Servings: 10 servings

Calories: 701kcal

Equipment

• ▢
  This Cake uses 3 x 6-inch cake tins (see notes for 8-inch cake)

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Ingredients

For the Cake

• ▢ 180 g/ ¾ cup butter – softened
• ▢ 180 g/ 1 cup dark muscovado sugar (lump free – see tips in main text)
• ▢ 180 g/ 1 ½ cups plain (all purpose) flour
• ▢ 2 teaspoon baking powder
• ▢ 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• ▢ 3 tablespoon cocoa powder
• ▢ 3 eggs
• ▢ 6 tablespoon buttermilk
• ▢ 3 tablespoon whole milk
• ▢ 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• ▢ 125 g/ 1 cup dark chocolate – roughly chopped (I used 65% cocoa solids)

For the Buttercream

• ▢ 300 g butter/ 1 ⅓ cup butter – softened
• ▢ 240 g / 2 ⅛ cup icing (confectionary) sugar – sieved
• ▢ 3 tablespoon runny honey
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon seasalt

Decoration

• ▢ Ground cinnamon
• ▢ Cinnamon sticks (optional)

Instructions

• Grease and line 3 x 6 inch baking tins with baking parchment
• Preheat oven 175C/ 325F/ GM3
• Weigh the flour, cocoa, baking powder & cinnamon into a bowl
• Put the chocolate into a small heatproof bowl and gently melt the chocolate in the microwave (or over a bain-marie) and set aside
• In another bowl cream the butter and sugar together using electric beaters until fluffy and paler in colour
• Beat in the eggs, one at a time
• Sieve half of the flour mixture into the batter and blend
• Add the buttermilk, milk and vanilla extract and mix
• Sieve in the remaining flour and mix until just combined
• Take a heaped tablespoon of the cake batter and quickly mix it into the melted chocolate then quickly blend this mixture back into the rest of the cake batter
• Divide the batter between the 3 cake tins, level slightly and bake for 22-25 minutes until the sponge springs back when lightly pressed or a skewer comes out clean
• Let cool in the tins for 2 minutes, then remove from the tins, peel off the baking parchment from the bottom of each sponge cake and let cool completely on a wire rack

Make the buttercream

• Use a pestle and mortar to crush the sea salt to a powder
• Using electric beaters whip the butter and icing sugar together – add the icing sugar 1 tablespoon at a time
• Beat in the honey, followed by ½ of the powdered salt
• Taste – add a little more powdered salt to suit tastes

Assemble the cake

• Lay one chocolate sponge cake onto a board and spread ¼ of the icing on top
• Place another layer of cake carefully on top of the layer of icing and top with another ¼ of the icing, spread it out and top with the final layer of cake
• Spread another ¼ icing on top of the cake and use the remaining icing to pipe rosettes on the top of the cake
• Dust with a little ground cinnamon and decorate with cinnamon sticks if desired

Notes

If you wish to use standard 8-inch tins, my suggestion is to simply double the recipe. In an ideal world, you would scale up the recipe to bake it using 5 eggs, but that leads to some fiddly measurements. Making double is far easier – just ensure you do not fill your sandwich tins more than ⅔ full with the batter and use the leftover batter to make a few cupcakes (freezable). You perhaps will not need to double the buttercream though – I’d suggest making 1.5 times that stated in the recipe.

Nutrition Per Serving (Approximate)

Calories:701kcal | Carbohydrates:69g | Protein:6g | Fat:46g | Saturated Fat:29g | Cholesterol:154mg | Sodium:441mg | Potassium:306mg | Fiber:3g | Sugar:50g | Vitamin A:1293IU | Calcium:114mg | Iron:3mg

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