You can make the cakes well ahead of time and refrigerate them or even freeze them, until you’re ready to assemble the cake.
Preheat oven to 350 °F. Spray the bottoms of the 3 cake pans with cooking spray. Then line the bottoms with parchment paper rounds cut out to fit the bottom of the pans. Finally, spray the parchment paper. This will all help to get the cakes out of the pans easily.
Sift flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda in a medium bowl. Set aside.
Divide the buttermilk into three small bowls, 1/2 cup in each. To one, whisk in the powdered espresso/coffee. To the second add the two extra tablespoons of buttermilk and whisk in the cocoa powder. Leave the third one alone. Set all of them aside for now.
In the bowl of your standing mixer, or using a handheld beater, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
Add eggs, egg whites and vanilla and beat until well-incorporated, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary.
Now, with the beater on low speed, slowly add the dry mixture and beat until blended.
Divide the batter evenly into three bowls, weighing them if necessary to ensure even layers.
Add the plain buttermilk to one, the coffee buttermilk to another and the cocoa buttermilk to the third. Whisking each until blended.
Pour the batters into the three different pans and bake for about 22-25 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool on a rack for about 15 minutes. Then, carefully, turn the cakes out the cake pans and directly onto the cooling rack. You can leave the parchment under each layer until you’re ready to assemble the final cake.