Chocolate Malt Robins Egg Cake with Malted Vanilla Buttercream

This post may contain affiliate links, please visit our privacy policy for details.

The perfect Easter treat…Chocolate Malt Robins Egg Cake with Malted Vanilla Buttercream! Simple, perfectly sweet, extra chocolate-y with just the right amount of malt, and so delicious. Imagine your favorite chocolate malt candy, but made into a delicious Easter treat! The cake is made in two bowls, using bloomed chocolate and malt powder to really get that delicious flavor. From there, it’s baked to perfection so that the cake is moist, fudge-y, and oh so tender. Each layer is sandwiched with a super simple malt buttercream frosting that’s a beautiful light blue hue, reminiscent of a robins egg. Every bite is chocolate-y, malty, and SO. GOOD. Truly the perfect cake to celebrate Easter, as well as Spring!

About The Recipe

Happy Friday! It’s finally the start of Easter weekend and we’re celebrating with this delicious Chocolate Malt Robins Egg Cake with Malted Vanilla Buttercream. It’s one of our favorite cakes to date. I mean, it’s not just cute, but it’s seriously SO. GOOD.

The cake is a simple dump cake, all you need to do is bloom the cocoa powder, mix dry ingredients, mix wet ingredients, and mix it all together! As a result, the cake, after baking, is tender, moist, and the perfect balance between chocolate and malt.

Though, we can’t forget about the malt frosting. This was something my mom and I debated back and forth to really get right. When we were testing this recipe, we tried a few different things. Our favorite was defiantly a lightly malted vanilla buttercream!

It really brings out the malt in the cake, which can get a little bit lost with all the chocolate!

Do you want to know the hardest part when testing this cake? Getting the robin’s egg blue color into the frosting! We tried mixing colors, but the one thing that worked the best was just a small amount blue food dye. It created a beautiful soft blue hue with light turquoise undertones. We were so happy! Especially once we got the speckles on the cake (which, I must say, was my favorite part! SO MESSY, but SO much fun).

All together, this cake created a stunning, delicious, and really simple Easter dessert that we couldn’t wait to share with all of you!

Happy Easter!

Why You Will Love This Robins Egg Cake

• Every element of this cake is truly SUPER simple!
• Tastes like a delicious chocolate malt candy.
• With the robins egg style decorations, it makes for a really cute Easter treat!
• A great bake to make with kids.

Equipment Needed

• Mixing Bowls
• Whisk
• Three 6 Inch Cake Pans
• Cake Tester
• Stand Mixer
• Cake Board
• Cake Stand
• Piping Bags
• Offset Spatula
• Pastry Brush

Ingredients

(Full ingredient amounts and instructions can be found in the recipe card at the bottom of the post)

For The Cake:

• Natural Cocoa Powder
• Boiling Water
• All-Purpose Flour
• Malted Milk Powder
• Granulated Sugar
• Baking Powder
• Baking Soda
• Salt
• Large Eggs
• Whole Milk
• Vegetable Oil
• Vanilla Extract

For The Frosting:

• Salted Butter
• Powdered Sugar
• Malted Milk Powder
• Vanilla Extract
• Heavy Cream
• Blue Food Coloring

For The Speckle:

• Cocoa Powder
• Dark Rum or Vanilla Extract

How To Make A Robins Egg Cake

Step 1: Bloom the chocolate

In a small bowl, whisk together cocoa powder and boiling water. Set aside.

Step 2: Make the cake

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, malt, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla.

Pour over top of dry ingredients and mix until smooth.

Stir in the bloomed chocolate.

Divide batter evenly into greased and floured pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until done. Let cool at least 10 minutes before turning out.

Step 3: Make the frosting

With an electric mixer, cream the butter.

Beat in powdered sugar.

Add malt powder, vanilla, and cream and beat until smooth and fluffy.

Stir in the blue food coloring.

Step 4: Make the chocolate speckles

In a small bowl, whisk together cocoa powder and rum until smooth.

Step 5: Build the cake

Once the cake layers are cooled, level the cake layers.

Place 1 cake layer on cake round or serving platter and pipe a ring of frosting around edge of cake layer. Fill in the ring and gently level the frosting with an offset spatula. Place the next cake layer on top and repeat. Repeat until topped with the third cake layer.

Step 6: Decorate

Pipe a ring of frosting around the top of the cake, then pipe strips of frosting all the way around the cake. Spread evenly with an offset spatula.

Using a wooden spoon and pastry brush, tap the pastry brush dipped in the chocolate mixture against the handle of the wooden spoon to create speckles on your cake. This is VERY messy so, be sure to lay out towels and wear an apron when you do this!

How To Achieve The Perfect Buttercream

There are are a few things you can do to make sure you get the creamiest, silkiest buttercream every single time! The first is making sure your butter is room temperature. This is super important! Another is sifting your powdered sugar. Lumps of powdered sugar = lumpy buttercream! Also, be sure to beat in the powdered sugar in small amounts rather than all at once. It really helps and makes a difference!

Decorating Ideas

• Use toasted coconut to create a nest on top of the cake.
• Place candy coated malted chocolate eggs on top.
• You can make extra frosting if you would like to pipe decorations!

How To Make Robins Egg Blue Frosting

With this cake, the main attraction is that stunning blue color! We found that using about a drop and a half of blue food coloring created a beautifully blue cake. Though, depending on how yellow your frosting is, it may be a little on the turquoise side. Which, is still fine! Just speckle the cake it will always be a show-stopper.

Natural Process or Dutch Process?

For this recipe, you will need natural process cocoa powder in the cake! When it comes to the speckling, that’s up to you. I used dutch process, as it was a little bit darker, but that’s the only reason. You can definitely use either or.

Chocolate Speckling Tips & Tricks

If you’re wondering how to get those perfect speckles from a robins egg onto your cake, it’s actually not difficult at all! Once you mix together the cocoa powder and rum/vanilla mixture, you will need a pastry brush (paint brushes tend to break) and dip it very lightly into your mixture. From there, take a wooden spoon, holding the spoon in your non-dominant hand so the handle of the spoon is outwards.

Then, tap the pastry brush handle against the wooden spoon handle. This will create a flick against your cake. It takes a few tries to get the hang of it, but it really does create a beautiful effect! Just remember to not get too much of the mixture on the brush, as this will create huge blotches and very big streaks and messes.

How To Store

Since this is a layer cake, you actually have a few ways to store this cake!

First, you can make the cake layers ahead of time. After baking (and cooling!) store the individual cake layers in freezer-safe zip top bags and freeze for up to a month. The frosting can be made about 1-2 days in advance, but it’s much easier to work with fresh!

If the cake is already assembled, you can leave this cake out on the counter, covered, at room temperature for about a day, but it’s really best kept in the fridge for 3-5 days. Another option is freezing the cake! You can freeze the cake as a whole or as individual slices. Just make sure to cover it!

Expert Tips

• The cake layers are VERY fragile and tender. Be careful!
• You can adjust the color of the frosting as you need to. We found 1 1/2 drops of blue food dye worked for us.
• When assembling the cake, you will need to use about 1/3 cup of frosting between the layers.
• The frosting makes just enough to assemble and cover this cake. If you would like more to pipe decorations, you will need to make more.
• You can use either dark rum or vanilla extract for the chocolate speckling. Both work well!
• Flicking the chocolate mixture is VERY messy (but very fun!). Make sure to cover anything around the cake that you don’t want covered in chocolate!

When you make this Chocolate Malt Robins Egg Cake with Malted Vanilla Buttercream, leave a comment down below! We love hearing from you and answering any questions you might have! Also, be sure to tag us on social media and hashtag it #BakersTable.

– Still Hungry? –

Here are a few recipes may like!