My friend Jen lived in Switzerland for about three years, and when she moved home in 2021, I felt inspired to welcome her back with a Double Double Cake. A Double Double is a fairly iconic drink at Tim Horton’s (it means a hot coffee with 2x cream and 2x sugar) and a classic Canadian term. I had seen this Double Double Cake on the Dinner With Julie blog AGES ago and it popped into my mind at the time. For Jen’s birthday this year, she requested another Double Double Cake for her birthday/housewarming party and I was excited to make it again!

I changed a couple of small things from the original post. I made 1.5x the recipe so I could have three cake layers for some dramatic height. I also remembered that using only double double in the icing made it too runny, so I used equal parts double double and whipping cream in My Favourite Buttercream. Finally, I had to add a Timbit garnish! (Cut to me in Timmy’s pointing at each Timbit I wanted so I would get the cutest ones!).

This was a BIG hit at Jen’s party, and I absolutely loved the way it turned out. Documenting it here, because to be honest, I’m not sure how much longer Julie’s blog will be around.

Double Double Cake

Source: Dinner with Julie

Ingredients

Cake

  • 3 cups flour
  • 1 3/4 cups + 2 tbsp sugar
  • 3/4 cup cocoa powder
  • 3 tsp baking soda
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 1/2 cups buttermilk (or milk, or almond milk)
  • 3/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 1 1/2 cups double double
  • 3oz dark chocolate, melted and cooled

Frosting

  • 1 cup butter, room temperature
  • 5 cups icing sugar
  • 1/4 cup whipping cream
  • 1/4 cup double double
  • 1 tsp coffee extract or vanilla extract

+ Timbits for decoration

Directions

  1. For the cake, preheat the oven to 350 and line the bottom of three 8″ cake pans with parchment paper and spray with non-stick spray.
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
  3. In a large bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, oil, eggs and vanilla.
  4. Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, stir together until mostly combined, then add the double double and melted chocolate, and mix until no floury bits remain.
  5. Divide the batter into the three pans, and bake for 30-35 minutes until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool completely before frosting.
  6. For the frosting, mix the butter, icing sugar, whipping cream, double double and coffee/vanilla extract together until smooth. Stack and frost your cake and decorate with timbits!