chocolate cake with brown butter cream cheese icing

chocolate cake with brown butter cream cheese icing

• 8 Dec 2025

Sometimes I’m a little late to the party. Apparently this chocolate sheet cake with brown butter frosting from Bon Appetit was all the rage a few years ago. I was making a birthday cake for 6-year-old twin girls and as I knew they both loved chocolate, sprinkles and lashings of creamy icing, the sheet cake recipe fitted the brief, but I wanted to make a layer cake. The cake doesn’t rise much so I used the full recipe to make two 8 inch cake layers.

The cake uses a mountain of sugar, so I cut down the sugar in the cake batter. I thought apricot jam would go well with the toasty brown butter icing so I filled the cake with apricot jam.

I’m not much of a cake decorator at the best of times but my piping bag split mid swirl. I put the camera down, covered the icing with sprinkles, packed the cake into a container and drove to my friend’s place. Unfortunately lighting the candles and blowing them out trumped taking any further photos of the cake that day.

The cake was divine, but the icing was so SWEET it made my teeth hurt. When I came home I decided to tweak the recipe a bit. For cake number two I made a single layer gluten free cake and topped it with a different but far less sweet brown butter icing. After levelling the cake, I coated it with layer of apricot jam, then drizzled some jam over the icing. I shared the cake with my neighbours and again it was declared a success.

Here's the recipe for you which will make an 8-inch layer cake. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C. 

If you’d like to make a 17 cm single layer cake, use half the batter and the cake will take close to an hour to bake. For the icing use 100g of butter, 100g cream cheese, 30g of milk powder, 125g of icing sugar, a tsp of vanilla extract and a pinch of salt.

Chocolate layer cake with brown butter cream cheese icing
Cake
350g caster sugar
225g plain flour (I used GF)
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
70g Dutch-process cocoa powder
250mls hot tap water
200mls vegetable oil
2 eggs
180ml well-shaken buttermilk
1/2 tsp flaky sea salt
2 tsp vanilla extract

Brown butter cream cheese icing
150g full fat softened cream cheese
150g unsalted butter, squidgy soft divided in 2
2 tsp vanilla paste
50g dried milk powder
pinch salt
175g icing sugar

Filling
1/3 cup apricot jam or flavour of your choice

Method
Place a rack in the centre of the oven; preheat the oven to 190⁰C, conventional. Grease and line the base of two 8 inch tins with baking paper, then dust with cocoa powder. Set to one side.

Whisk the sugar, flour and bicarbonate of soda in a medium bowl until well combined.

In a large jug, whisk the cocoa powder with the cup of hot tap water and mix until the cocoa has dissolved. Add the vegetable oil, the eggs, the buttermilk, the salt and vanilla extract and whisk again just to combine. Add the cocoa mixture to the dry ingredients and whisk gently until just combined and the batter is smooth. Scrape the batter evenly into the 2 prepared tins.

Bake the cakes on the centre rack of the preheated 190⁰C, conventional oven for about 30 minutes, or until the cake springs back when gently pressed or a tester inserted into the centre comes out with a few moist crumbs attached.

Let the cakes cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Cut around each cake with a knife before inverting onto a wire rack. Peel away the baking paper; invert the cakes and cool completely on the rack.

Icing
Place 75g of unsalted butter in a small saucepan over a medium-low heat and cook until it begins to foam. Stir constantly until the mixture turns a dark nut brown colour. Remove from heat and immediately pour the butter into the bowl of a stand mixer. Place the bowl into the fridge and cool for about 15 minutes.

Remove the bowl from the fridge. Add the cream cheese, the remaining butter, the vanilla paste, milk powder and salt into the bowl. Sift the icing sugar over the top. Beat with the paddle attachment for 10 minutes on speed 4 (below low) until pale, and fluffy then store covered in the fridge until needed. If refrigerated, rewarm in the microwave in 20-second bursts until softened.

Assembly

Level the top of the cakes if needed. Place one cake layer onto a serving platter. Spoon a small amount of the icing into a piping bag fitted with a 1 cm nozzle. Pipe a cm of icing around the edge of the cake to form a dam. Spoon 1/3 cup of jam into the well, level with an off set spatula then gently place the second layer on top.

Spoon or pipe swirls of icing onto the top of the cake. Store the cake in an airtight container in the fridge. Bring to room temperature before seving. The cake will keep covered for up to 3 days.

I am not usually a chocolate cake fan but this cake is really moist and absolutely delicious.

Next week is Christmas Week on the blog where I'll be sharing 5 new recipes with you. I'm looking forward to it, and I hope you are as well.

See you all again next week.

Bye for now,

Jillian