My Birthday Cake Journey – Chocolate & Coffee Cake with Oreos (Includes Recipe)

Baking 

Cake

Let’s start with the most important part — the cake. I’m completely addicted to coffee. If there’s one thing I must have in the morning, it’s a cup of coffee. Coffee is a luxury! We should never take it for granted. We could be drinking barley coffee… Just kidding. Barley coffee is actually good — but coffee is better.

Back to the cake: I wanted to include coffee, and is there a better pairing for coffee than chocolate? I don’t think so.

This recipe is quite simple and results in a very flavorful and moist cake.

1. Gather all the ingredients and prepare your cake pan. I always grease my pans the same way, and I absolutely love it — it’s simple and works perfectly. Start by greasing the entire pan with butter. A little trick: place a piece of butter on a paper towel and grease the pan that way — no messy hands. Then, use the base of the pan to trace a circle on parchment paper and cut it out. Place the parchment at the bottom of the pan and finish by dusting the sides with cocoa powder. The parchment paper helps a lot when unmolding — no more cakes sticking to the pan!

2. In a bowl, add the eggs and sugar and beat with a mixer until a light foam forms. It’s very important not to overmix at any stage when baking. As soon as you see the foam forming, stop.

3. Add the oil and mix until fully combined.

4. Dissolve the instant coffee in warm water and pour it into the batter.

5. Add the cocoa powder and mix.

6. Gradually add the flour and mix until just incorporated.

7. Finish with the baking powder and mix until you get a smooth batter.

8. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and bake in a preheated oven at 180 °C for about 40–45 minutes.

And here’s where my problems started — which, honestly, has been a recurring issue whenever I bake cakes. My oven is highly untrustworthy. I almost always need to bake my cakes longer than the recipe suggests. This time, it was a bit worse: the top of the cake baked too quickly while the inside was still liquid.

And then… this happened:

The top of the cake completely separated from the rest. Imagine my panic. BUT — fear not — I managed to fix it.

Here’s what I did: I moved the cake to the lowest rack of the oven (which I honestly should have done from the beginning — cakes should always bake on the lower rack). Then, to prevent the top from burning even more, I placed a sheet of aluminum foil over it — a very useful trick if you don’t know it yet. Whenever something in the oven is browning too fast but isn’t cooked through, just cover it with foil!

Because of this, my cake ended up baking for 1 hour and 10 minutes. But if you place the cake on the correct oven rack from the start, this shouldn’t happen. And yes — I had to cut off the separated top.

Filling

If you want, you can make the filling the day before, just like I did — that way you’ll have one less thing to do on the day you assemble the cake. Simply store it in the fridge, covered with plastic wrap.

The recipe is very simple:

1. Whip the cream with the sugar until it forms a firm whipped cream.

2. Dissolve the instant coffee in a small amount of warm milk and gently fold it into the whipped cream.

3. Add the chopped Oreos and lightly fold them in.

In the end, the filling should be slightly firm so it doesn’t ooze out when slicing the cake.

Chocolate Ganache

1. Heat the cream using a double boiler, making sure it doesn’t boil.

2. Turn off the heat and add the chopped chocolate. The more finely you chop the chocolate, the better.

3. Stir until smooth and glossy.

For my cake, I tried making the ganache with a 2:1 ratio of chocolate to cream, because I wanted it to be thick enough not to drip down the sides of the cake. However, I recommend using a 1:1 ratio, as listed in the recipe, because my ganache ended up a bit firmer than I would have liked.

You can store the ganache in the fridge while the cake isn’t ready to be decorated yet. When you’re ready to use it, simply heat it in the microwave for about 20 seconds, stir well, and it will return to a more runny, spreadable consistency.

Whipped Cream

1. Whip the cold cream with the sugar until stiff peaks form.

2. Add the mascarpone for extra stability and mix until fully combined.

Tip: keep the cream very cold until the moment you’re ready to decorate the cake.

This was my second “mistake.” My original idea was to brown the topping with a blowtorch to give the final result an extra fancy touch. What I didn’t know was that you can’t use whipped cream for that, because it doesn’t caramelize — it just melts. What I should have used instead was meringue, which is a sweet made from egg whites and sugar. Meringue is much more stable and doesn’t melt under heat.

As I always say — always learning. 

Decoration

The best part of baking, in my opinion — but also the scariest.

To assemble my cake, I started by cutting it in half and filling it with a layer of ganache, spreading it on one of the cake layers and being careful not to use too much, to avoid it spilling out. On top of the ganache, I spread the coffee Oreo whipped cream filling. It was delicious! Then, I placed the other cake layer on top.

Next came the whipped cream frosting. I started with a crumb coat, which is a very important step to seal in the crumbs and prevent them from showing in the final result. For the crumb coat, I always try to use the smallest amount of frosting possible — just enough to cover the entire cake. Then, I placed it in the fridge for 15 minutes.

After that, I applied the final layer of whipped cream, using a palette knife to smooth it out as much as possible and trying to keep the frosting even (spoiler: it wasn’t perfectly even, but intention counts).

That said, I didn’t need it to be completely smooth, because my plan was to create soft waves on the sides of the cake. I did this using the knife, gently pressing so I wouldn’t dig into the frosting and expose the cake underneath.

On the top of the cake, I didn’t fully cover it — just a bit around the edges.

Once that was done, I used a piping tip to make rosettes around the entire cake, carefully making sure there were no gaps between them, so the chocolate ganache wouldn’t escape later.

Speaking of ganache — I poured it into the center of the cake and gently spread it until it covered the whole middle.

For the final touches:

• I placed fresh raspberries (washed and very well dried) on top of half of the rosettes.

• On the other half, I added a bit of edible gold glitter using a spoon (I love adding glitter to my cakes).

• I sprinkled crushed Oreos over the ganache.

• Finally, I made chocolate shavings using a scraper and shaving the edges of a dark chocolate bar. I sprinkled them over the ganache and Oreos using a spoon (chocolate shavings melt if you try to handle them with your fingers!).

Once the decoration was finished, I placed the cake back in the fridge until it was time for the party, so it stayed nice and fresh — and it was ready!

Honestly, I think this was the most extravagant cake I’ve ever made. I loved the whole process (except for the part where I almost had a meltdown because of the baking time), and it tasted SO good. The filling was incredible and made the cake much more interesting. I also think the decoration turned out really pretty. That said, I would have loved to see how it would have looked if I had managed to torch the edges like I originally planned. But that’s okay — there will be a next creation!

Here’s a picture of a slice of the cake, just so you can see how it turned out on the inside. Please forgive the not-so-aesthetic slice — I’m still working on my food photography skills!

Extra Tip

After 2 or 3 days, the cake will start to dry out a bit. If you like it that way, perfect! I’ve heard that Jake Bongiovi only eats cakes that are more than two days old — anything goes!

But if you’re like me and prefer a moist cake, here’s a tip: more coffee. Seriously. Make a cup of coffee and drizzle a bit over your slice. Do it spoon by spoon so you don’t soak it too much. Trust me — it’s really good. I’m not joking.

This cake fit beautifully into the phase of life I’m currently in — with the wonderful taste of coffee, the fuel of my days thanks to the degree I’m working so hard to finish; but still sweet, like the person I aspire to be every single day.

I decided to share my journey of creating yet another cake for my celebrations not only to inspire you for a future cake you might want to make, but also to show that everything we want to do comes with challenges (like the baking issue I had!). Still, it’s always worth it, because in the end what truly matters is that we have fun and learn from the difficulties and mistakes we make along the way.

And above all, never give up on what’s important to you, even when it feels too challenging — after all, what really matters is the process, and that includes the learning curve that comes with everything in life.

I hope you enjoyed this idea! If you enjoy cooking as much as I do, feel free to explore more recipes I’ll be sharing here on the blog — including savory meals you can get inspired by and truly enjoy!

And if you make this cake, let me know in the comments how it went! I love hearing your feedback. And of course, if you have tips for my next culinary adventures, they’re more than welcome.

See you next time! Ladybug out!