Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Buttercream

I wanted to find a simple recipe that I could use without an electric mixer and without complicated ingredients, and came across this one. Luckily there was buttermilk at our local mini-grocery-store in collegetown. I didn't use hot coffee but the boiling water was perfect anyway.

This cake was for my friend's 21st birthday on friday, and it was a huge hit! I made 3 layers and the frosting was barely enough for me, just a warning. I couldn't find butter anywhere so I used store-bought white frosting...kinda cheated...but oh well it wasn't a big extra. People thought the cake was extremely moist and the frosting was very smooth, and so it was great, and could easily be my newest go-to chocolate cake, minus one huge detail: You DEFINITELY, in my opinion anyway, need to line the bottom of the cake pans with parchment paper. I didn't. They kinda fell apart. I managed to put them back together okay, but the middle layer looked pretty bad before I covered the whole thing with frosting.

Double Chocolate Cake
Recipe from Foodessa
Found on Pinch of Yum
Adapted by me

2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 cup hot coffee (or 1 cup boiling water)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease three round baking pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper, greasing the top of that, and set them aside. In a large bowl, stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add eggs, buttermilk, melted butter and vanilla extract; beat 2 minutes on medium speed. Stir in hot coffee.

Pour batter evenly between the three pans and bake on middle rack of oven for 30 to 35 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely on wire racks before frosting.

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
Recipe from Confessions of a Tart
Found on Pinch of Yum

2 sticks (1 cup) butter, room temperature
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (more to your tastes)
1/2 cup milk
2-3 cups of powdered sugar (more or less to achieve desired consistency)

Whip the room-temperature butter on medium speed. Shift to low and add cocoa powder slowly, spoonfuls at a time, until fully incorporated. Still on low, add in the powdered sugar (also one spoonful at a time), alternating with the milk, to achieve desired consistency and taste. Then, beat on medium speed until very light and fluffy, another 3-5 minutes. Add in more sugar if consistency is too thin.