This June Afternoon Groom’s Cake is the perfect side-kick cake in any wedding! Four ultra moist layers of cake are shaded to a storm gray and folded with crushed and chopped oreos. A white and gray watercolor cake design is topped with an abundance of crisp green chrysanthemums!
Dear future husband—we will have this groom’s cake. You’ll have to like it. Not liking cake is crucial. You’ll have to stomach macrons, cakes, doughnuts, and tarts.
Oh and you can’t hate peanut butter. Peanut butter is a deal breaker.
June Afternoon Groom’s Cake is manly. The black oreo swirl within the cake’s gray backdrop, makes for one dark and hansom dessert. June Afternoon Groom’s Cake is just that—inspired by those dark gray-blue afternoon thunderstorms. The contrast is so stark—foreboding thunderheads against the bright crisp green foliage of early summer.
Inspired by the Korean buttercream trend, I decorated with a boat load of chrysanthemums.
The contrast of ultra dark and ultra bright makes for an intense and in-your-face cake!
Let this cake and this post be an advertisement for a husband!
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- For the Thunderstorm Cake:
- 3 ¾ cups cake flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 ½ teaspoons fine salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks, 8 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 2 ½ cups granulated sugar
- 5 large eggs, room temperature
- ¾ cup full-fat sour cream
- 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups whole milk
- black food gel
- 1 ¼ cup ground Oreos
- 12 Oreos, broken into quarters
- For the Stormy Frosting:
- 1 ½ cups (3 sticks, 12 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
- 8 ½ cups powdered sugar, sifted
- ⅓ cup heavy cream
- 1 ½ tablespoons vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon fine salt
- black food gel
- To assemble the June Afternoon Groom’s Cake:
- 2 cups green frosting
- 1 cup vanilla frosting
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 4 8-inch cake pans with baking spray, set aside.
- Whisk cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl and set aside.
- Beat butter in a stand mixer with a paddle attachment on high for 1 minute. Add oil and sugar and raise speed, beating for 2 minutes. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl down as needed.
- Add eggs, one at a time, and beat for an additional 2 minutes, scraping the bowl when needed.
- In a spouted measuring cup whisk sour cream, milk, and vanilla together.
- Mix in dry ingredients in 3 additions and wet ingredients in 2 additions beating until just combined. Add in black food gel followed by ground and quartered Oreos. Use a rubber spatula to thoroughly scrape the sides and mix the batter.
- Divide batter between pans and bake for 20 to 30 minutes, rotating halfway. A toothpick inserted should come out clean or with a few moist crumbs. Allow cakes to cool in pans for 5 minutes, before inverting them onto a wire rack to cool completely.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat butter on medium-high speed until fluffy and pale in color, about 3 minutes. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. Add the powdered sugar, followed by the cream, vanilla, salt, and black gel. Raise speed to high and beat for another 2 to 3 minutes. Lower speed and add Oreo crumbs. Don’t over beat Oreo crumbs. Refrigerate until ready to use.
- Tint half of the vanilla frosting with black food gel. Spoon a bit of frosting onto a cake board. Secure the first cake layer and apply some of the Stormy Frosting, apply the second layer and repeat. Top with the final third layer. Do a crumb coat, chill for 10 minutes, and do a final thicker coat of Stormy Frosting. Spoon white and black frostings randomly around cake and use a bench scrape to smear the frosting, creating a watercolor effect. Decorate with green flowers.