This black drip cake recipe uses my favorite moist chocolate cake recipe and is frosted with decadent black cocoa buttercream.

I swear the buttercream is pretty much half frosting, half chocolate! This recipe is delicious, decadent, and perfect for celebrating everything from Halloween to New Year’s!

How Do I Make Black Drips for a Cake?

Just because drip cakes are beautiful, doesn’t mean they have to be complicated. Let’s start with the basics and discuss the ingredients!

Believe it or not, a black chocolate ganache drip is made with only three ingredients. All you need is a half-cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips, some heavy cream, and black gel food coloring.

I do NOT recommend using liquid food coloring to make the ganache! You need to use more of it to create a black color, and it can throw off the consistency of the ganache.

If you can’t find heavy cream in your grocery store, you can also use heavy whipping cream.

Sadly, you can’t use regular milk in place of the heavy cream in this chocolate drip recipe. Heavy cream has 36-38% milk fat.

You need a high fat percentage to create that wonderful consistency that chocolate ganache is known for. If you use regular milk, your mixture will be too thin.

To make this recipe, you simply heat up the cream until it’s steaming then pour it over the chocolate chips.

After letting them sit for a minute to melt, add in the gel food coloring and give it a quick stir. And just like that, you have silky smooth chocolate ganache.

It comes together pretty quickly. The challenging part of a drip cake is actually adding the drips to the cake. But don’t worry, we’ll walk through that together!

How Do I Add Black Drips to a Cake?

There are two common ways to add drips to a cake. Most people use either a spoon or a plastic squirt bottle.

Some people prefer one method over the other. I recommend using whatever method you feel most comfortable with!

Adding Black Chocolate Drips Using a Spoon

One way you can add chocolate drips to cake is with a spoon. The best thing about this method is that you don’t need any special tools. I think everyone has a spoon in their kitchen!!

You simply take 1-2 teaspoons of chocolate ganache in a spoon and carefully pour it over the edge of a chilled buttercream cake.

I recommend scraping the bottom of your spoon against the bowl each time you scoop up a bit ganache.

This will prevent rouge bits of ganache from dripping off the bottom of your spoon all over your counter and your cake.

Adding Drips Using a Squirt Bottle

The second way you can add drips to a cake is with a plastic bottle. Once the black chocolate ganache is made, carefully pour it into a plastic squirt bottle.

Not everyone has these on hand, but they’re pretty cheap to buy! You can find them at Target, Walmart, or on Amazon (that’s where I get mine).

You can also place your ganache in small piping bag if you don’t have a bottle.

I like using a squirt bottle because it is a lot faster than a using spoon. In my opinion, it also is easier!

If you have leftover ganache, you can simply pop the cap on your bottle and throw it in the fridge.

Leftover chocolate ganache can last in the fridge for up to a month. I have a little shelf in my fridge door dedicated to bottles of leftover ganache!

To reuse leftover ganache, pop the bottle into the microwave and reheat in 10 second intervals until it’s fluid again and looks like it’s the right consistency.

Tips For Adding Black Drips to a Cake

There are two very important steps I recommend following to make sure your black drip cake turns out as amazing as possible.

Tip #1: Chill Your Cake

My first tip is to only add drips to a chilled cake! I mean THOROUGHLY chilled. Crumb coat your cake, then smooth on a second coat of buttercream and chill the cake until the frosting is firm to the touch.

This can take up to 30 minutes in the fridge, or about 10 minutes in the freezer.

Chilling your cake will help your drips stay in place once they’re added and help prevent them from running down too far.

Tip #2: Make a Test Drip

My second tip is to make a test drip. You can do this on the back of your chilled cake, or even the side of a tall cup if you want a little extra practice.

As you add on a few test drips, let them flow and sit for a couple minutes. See what they look like and how far they ran down the side of the cake.

Are you happy with how it looks? This is your time to make changes to get it just right. Is it too thin? Did the drip run too far down the cake? Maybe you need to let your ganache cool more or melt in a bit more chocolate.

Is your drip too thick or short? You might need to pop the ganache in the microwave for a couple seconds (seriously, don’t heat it for more than 5 seconds). Or maybe you want to add in a tiny bit more heavy cream.

This is the point in the process where my eagerness can get the best of me. I think I’ve made the necessary adjustments and dive right into adding all my drips.

But for all you know, you may have overcorrected! You may have actually heated or cooled your ganache too much.

After each adjustment to your ganache, you need to do another test drip. It’s worth taking the extra few minutes to make sure your ganache is the perfect temperature.

What Type of Chocolate Chips Should I Use?

I find this recipe turns out best with semi-sweet chocolate chips, but you can use milk or dark chocolate chips if that’s what you have on hand.

Different types of chocolate have different amounts of cocoa butter in them, which impact their consistency once they’re melted down.

You may have noticed that dark chocolate seems thinner than milk or white chocolate when melted.

If you want to use dark chocolate, I recommend adding in an extra tablespoon of chocolate chips to help thicken the mixture and prevent runaway drips.

If you use milk chocolate, I suggest adding an extra 2 teaspoons of heavy cream to make it fluid enough to easily add drips around your cake.

These are general guidelines that should work with most types of chocolate, but different brands do have different cocoa percentages! So, make additional adjustments as needed as you perform your test drip(s).

Tips for Making the Best Black Drip Cake

• Use this drip recipe on any type of chilled buttercream cake.
• Don’t add this black drip to a cake covered in fondant. It can do weird things to the fondant and create a goopy mess.
• I prefer using mini semi-sweet chocolate chips, but any type of chocolate chip (or finely chopped chocolate bar) will work. See my notes above about using different types of chocolate.
• Be sure to use heavy cream or heavy whipping cream! You need the high fat content to create the right consistency in this recipe. Milk cannot be used in place of the cream.
• To make a vegan version of this black ganache drip, use coconut cream and dark chocolate.
• If you want to make a cake with colorful drips, try my colorful drip cake recipe.
• If you’re more of a visual learner, check out my detailed video tutorial.

Making This Black Drip Cake in Advance & Storage Tips

• Make the black chocolate ganache ahead of time or save leftovers! Once it’s made, wrap the bowl with plastic wrap or cover the top of the plastic bottle and store in the fridge for up to 3 weeks.
• To use chilled ganache, heat the bottle or bowl in the microwave for 10 second intervals until it reaches the right consistency.
• Use leftover ganache to top cupcakes, cookies, or even ice cream!

Share Your Creations with Me!

If you try this black drip cake recipe, please tag me @chelsweets and use #chelsweets so that I can see your amazing creations!

And don’t forget to leave a rating and comment below.

Other Recipes You Might Like: