Food and Recipes Recipes Bourbon-Chocolate Cake With Praline Frosting 5.0 (2) 2 Reviews Impress your friends and family with this 3-layer chocolate cake featuring two of the South's favorite indulgences: pralines and bourbon. And when those two are combined with rich chocolate, you get pure decadence. By Southern Living Test Kitchen Southern Living Test Kitchen The Southern Living Test Kitchen has been publishing recipes since 1970, four years after the first issue of Southern Living Magazine appeared on newsstands. The Southern Living Test Kitchen team includes a team of professionals with deep expertise in recipe development, from pastry chefs and grilling experts to nutritionists and dietitians. Together, the team tests and retests, produces, styles, and photographs thousands of recipes each year in the state-of-the-art test kitchen facility located in Birmingham, Alabama. Southern Living's editorial guidelines Published on December 17, 2018 Print Rate It Share Share Tweet Pin Email Prep Time: 35 mins Cook Time: 28 mins Chill Time: 30 mins Total Time: 1 hrs 33 mins Yield: 12 servings Ingredients 1 cup butter 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa 1 cup water 1/2 cup buttermilk 2 large eggs 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 cups sugar 2 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon salt Chocolate Ganache Praline Frosting Bourbon Glaze Directions Grease bottoms of 3 (8-inch) round cake pans; line with wax paper. Grease and flour wax paper and sides of pans; set pans aside. Cook first 3 ingredients in a saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, 3 to 5 minutes or until butter melts and mixture is smooth; remove from heat, and let cool. Beat buttermilk and next 3 ingredients at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth. Add butter mixture to buttermilk mixture, beating until blended. Combine sugar, flour, and salt; gradually add to buttermilk mixture, beating until blended. (Batter will be thin.) Pour batter evenly into prepared pans. Bake at 350° for 25 to 28 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted into centers comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks 10 minutes. Remove from pans, and cool completely on wire racks. (Cake layers will appear thin.) Spread about 1/2 cup Chocolate Ganache between each cake layer; spread remaining Chocolate Ganache on sides of cake. (Do not frost top of cake.) Chill cake 30 minutes. Pour warm Praline Frosting slowly over top of cake, spreading to edges. (Cover and let stand up to 24 hours, if desired.) Pierce about 25 holes in top of cake using a wooden or metal skewer. Pour warm Bourbon Glaze over cake. Rate it Print