Joy the Baker Has a Surprising Secret for Better Homemade Chocolate Frosting

Thanks to her fun and whimsical recipes (I mean, how good do these Saltine Cracker-Brownie Ice Cream Sandwiches look?), Joy the Baker has amassed a large and loyal following over the years. In fact, she’s one of the food blogs I consistently turn to for delicious and reliable recipes. So when I began researching recipes to include in our birthday cake showdown, I wasn’t surprised that two of my coworkers recommended Joy’s recipe.

Joy’s cake recipe (which she dubs “Everybody’s Birthday Cake”) is a homemade yellow cake finished with a chocolate frosting made with Ovaltine. As a fan of pretty much everything Joy does, I was eager to give the recipe a try.

Get the recipe: Joy the Baker’s Everybody’s Birthday Cake

Joy’s recipe is a fairly classic yellow cake finished with a homemade chocolate frosting. You’ll start by creaming together butter and sugar in a stand mixer until light and creamy, then beat in eggs and vanilla extract. In a second bowl, combine the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, followed by buttermilk. Pour the batter into two greased and floured cake pans and bake until golden.

As the cakes are cooling, make the frosting. Cream together butter, cocoa powder, salt, powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla extract. In a liquid measuring cup, combine heavy cream and chocolate Ovaltine powder, then slowly add that to the bowl of frosting while still mixing. Beat until light and fluffy. Once smooth, your frosting is done and you can go ahead and frost and assemble your cake however you like.

This birthday cake was good, but not great. The cake itself had a nice vanilla flavor but was a tad too dry for me, and I’m not convinced it was better than a boxed mix. The frosting, however, was very good — by far the best part of the cake. The addition of chocolate Ovaltine gave it a malty flavor that helped bring out the rich chocolate flavor. You couldn’t necessarily pick out the Ovaltine flavor, but you could tell something interesting was going on. The frosting recipe is definitely a keeper, but the cake was a tad too forgettable for me. I don’t think I will make it again.

1. Double the frosting if you’re making a layer cake. Joy’s recipe is actually developed for a sheet cake or layer cake, so make sure to double the frosting recipe if you plan to make a layer cake. (Joy notes this in her recipe.)
   
2. Feel free to use malted milk powder instead of Ovaltine in the frosting. Chocolate Ovaltine powder can be found in the powdered beverage section of most grocery stores. If you can’t find it, malted milk powder (found in the baking section) will work well.
   
   Rating: 7/10

Have you ever made Joy The Baker’s birthday cake recipe? Tell us what you thought!