Preheat the oven to 330 degrees.
In the bowl of your mixer combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Combine the mixture with the paddle attachment in your mixer to distribute the ingredients.
In a medium bowl put your chocolate chips and cocoa powder in a medium bowl. Pour the hot coffee over the top of it and let it sit for a minute to warm the chocolate.
Add the warm buttermilk and stir to combine until the whole mixture is smooth.
Add the eggs to the chocolate mixture and combine until smooth and set aside.
Add the softened butter to the dry mixture and allow that to mix making a coarse sand like texture, about 1 minute.
With your mixer on low, add around half of your wet ingredients. You really just want to add enough liquid so that everything is a little wet without forming a dough texture, it should resemble cake batter. Then turn it to medium and let it mix for 2 minutes. Set a timer and do not go over. This helps develop the structure of the cake, without over mixing.
Scrape your bowl after the 2 minutes. With your mixer on low add the rest of the wet ingredents. Mix just until totally combined, about 15 seconds. Scrape the bowl again if needed.
Prepare the pans by spraying with baking spray and lining the bottom with parchment paper.
Divide the batter evenly between 3, 6 inch pans. I used 17 oz per 6 in pan.
Cover the cakes with aluminum foil and bake for 55-65 min or until done. They are done once they start to pull away from the sides of the pan or a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Allow the cakes to cool on a cooling rack until the pan is cool enough to touch. Remove the cakes from the pans and let them cool completely before wrapping in plastic wrap to freeze or to decorate.