Dark Chocolate Cake with Neon-Pink Whipped Cream Frosting

Special birthdays deserve special homemade cakes!💕 We had a special milestone birthday of our little one and celebrated with this very pink-princess like cake😊

This year her demand was for a chocolate cake and hence baked a dark chocolate cake with neon pink colored whipped cream frosting. I love the stark contrast of dark chocolate with neon pink. The cake looks gorgeous in that combination!

Dark Chocolate Cake (Makes a small 6 inch cake)
1 cup All purpose flour
3/4 cup Sugar
1/3 cup Yogurt (whole milk)
1/3 cup Water
1/3 cup Unsweetened dark cocoa powder
1/4 cup Unsalted butter
1 Egg
1 tsp Bru instant coffee powder
3/4 tsp Baking powder
1/2 tsp Baking soda
1 pinch salt

1) Preheat oven to 350F. Layer 6 inch circle cake pan with parchment paper on the bottom. Coat with oil/butter on the pan sides and dust with some flour to avoid the cake sticking.
2) Beat butter, egg, salt and sugar till light and fluffy. Add yogurt, water and rest of the ingredients. Beat till well mixed. Do not over mix!
3) Pour into the loaf pan and bake for 30-40 mins. Check with toothpick. It should come out clean.
4) Let the cake cool completely.
( ** Or you can bake the cake the day before to save time)

Neon-Pink Whipped Cream Frosting
 (I add some cream cheese to stabilize the whipped cream and cut the sweet taste)
2 Cups Heavy Whipping Cream (chilled)
1/2 cup softened cream cheese
4 tbsp sugar (Add more for sweeter taste)
2-4 drops Neon Pink gel food color (Depends on desired color)
Pink and White Sugar pearls for decoration
(** This makes little extra frosting than needed. Any leftover frosting can be frozen in freezer safe containers)

1) Beat the cream cheese, sugar and heavy whipping cream in chilled bowl till stiff peaks form.
Keep aside about 1/2 of the white icing in a bowl in the refrigerator
2) Add neon pink gel color to the rest of the icing and beat for few seconds. Fill in piping bag with large rosette piping nozzle and store in refrigerator till ready to use.

Cake Assembly:
1) Place the cake on serving platter/ cake stand that can be refrigerated. Coat the completely cooled cake with thin layer of white whipped cream frosting.This is called 'crumb coating' and helps with the next layer of smooth frosting without any cake crumbs. Keep the cake in the refrigerator to set for 30 mins.

2) Layer the cake with pink frosting on bottom and white of top and side. Smoothen it out with icing knife/ spatula.

3) Pipe rosette pattern with pink frosting on the top

4) Cover the entire top surface with rosettes. Decorate with pink sugar pearls on top and white sugar pearls on the bottom/sides

5) Refrigerate the cake after frosting/ decoration is done. Whipped cream frosting starts to soften at room temperature, so the cake needs to be stored in refrigerator.