Black Velvet Cake Ingredients:
1 Cup Black Velvet Cacao
1 Cup Boiling Water or Hot Coffee
1 3/4 Cup All-Purpose Flour
1 3/4 Cup Sugar
1 tsp Baking Soda
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
2 Large Eggs
1/2 Cup Light, Neutral Oil - I used Sunflower Oil
1 Cup Buttermilk, or Buttermilk Substitute
Baking Directions:
Preheat oven to 350º F. Grease or line with parchment paper two square 9 in baking pans, or one 9 x 13 in pan.
In a Small bowl, pour the boiling water/hot coffee in with the cacao and whisk till smooth. Leave to “bloom” while preparing the rest of the ingredients.
In a Large bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt
In a Medium-sized bowl, whisk the eggs and oil together, then add the bloomed cacao (you’ll know it’s bloomed when it’s pitch-black), and the buttermilk.
Make a well in the dry ingredients bowl, and pour in the wet mixture. Mix until it’s well combined. The batter will be thin. Pour batter into the prepared pans and bake for 20-30 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool to at least room temp before using a coffin-shaped cookie cutter to cut out the coffin cakes. Be strategic about how you cut out the cakes to get as many as possible. I used a 4.75 in long cutter and got about a dozen cakes.
Do not throw out the scraps, you’ll be using it later!
Black Cacao Icing
The regular cacao buttercream icing I used in the picture came from a different recipe, but I wasn’t happy with the outcome so I suggest following the icing recipe from this:
Icing & Presentation:
Take the leftover cake scraps and put in a bowl. Crumble in your hands to the point that it resembles grave dirt. Ice the cakes and during the plating, or on your presentation tray, take your crumbled “grave dirt” and sprinkle over the top of each cake.
Flavor Notes: Black cacao does not taste like regular cacao. It has a flavor that resembles an oreo. Also, this is meant to be a very moist cake, and the grave dirt dries up quickly on its own. If reserving the “grave dirt” for a future day, I suggest storing it in the fridge to keep it moist. You could also sprinkle a little powdered sugar on top if you want to add a little “color.” 
What do you think? Let me know if you give it a try!
