This Tiramisu Layer Cake is an ideal indulgent celebration cake for all lovers of coffee, chocolate and of course that delicious Italian classic, tiramisu!
THIS CAKE. Oh, promise me you’ll make it? I’m aware it’s not immediately evident here on the blog, but I love to bake. I started to bake back when I was a kid, way before I learnt to cook actual meals. Baking is what I did to avoid boredom, my favourite weekend activity growing up in a rural village, far away from my school friends. I loved to get creative in the kitchen, adapting recipes as I saw fit to keep things interesting. And more recently, I fulfilled a dream of mine – to bake my own wedding cake. And it was beautiful, a 6-tier tower of elegant vanilla cupcakes, topped off with a 6 inch chocolate layer cake (with vanilla frosting!) for the chocolate-loving bride and groom. It was simply decorated with white sugar roses, white sprinkles and three pastel roses on top. It was perfect.
Anyway – back to this cake. Tiramisu Layer Cake with Ombre Mascarpone Frosting. This is the cake my dreams are made of. If you were to ask me what my favourite dessert is, chances are my reply would be tiramisu. Now, I’m a dessert lover and there are a lot of desserts I like. My favourites are anything with chocolate, caramel or coffee. Those are my favourite flavours and I’d far sooner pick one of those than a fruit-based dessert (although I love fruit desserts too and you can expect one on the blog soon!) But what would I pick out of all those if I could only pick one? What will I immediately go for if I see it on a menu? It has to be tiramisu. I just love the stuff. If my husband and I find savoiardi biscuits on sale in the supermarket, we’re in trouble. We inhale the stuff. Eep.
So, it was my birthday last Sunday and I love to bake something special to celebrate. This year, it simply had to be tiramisu in cake form. A tiramisu layer cake. Once the idea had been conceived in my mind, that was it, it had to happen. AND IT DID.
I was keen to make a layer cake with ombre frosting as I’ve never tried that technique before. It was surprisingly easy and the effect was incredible! Naturally, the cake layers had to be chocolate, coffee and vanilla. I don’t actually use vanilla when I make a genuine tiramisu but you can’t go wrong really, can you? I made a simple coffee syrup to soak the cake layers but I wished I had made more. As such, the recipe as written calls for twice the volume of syrup that I actually used but I’m absolutely confident it will work just fine for you. Alternatively, if you didn’t fancy making a syrup, you could soak the cake layers with a coffee liqueur instead – Kahlua would be perfect!
The pièce de résistance, however, is that frosting. Oh my dayz. Now, I’m a buttercream lover but come on, we can’t be putting buttercream on a tiramisu cake, can we? It just wouldn’t be right! This mascarpone frosting is perfect in so many ways. It’s oh so creamy and just subtly sweet – I’m not making health claims here but it was refreshing to make a frosting that wasn’t mostly made up of sugar. The other thing? It’s super easy to make. Bring your mascarpone up to room temperature and stir your sugar in with a spatula or wooden spoon and you’re done. Love it.
The recipe makes a lot of frosting – more than you need – but that’s no punishment, let me tell you. It’s almost frightening how easy it is to eat! I assure you, you’ll find ways to finish it off! Plus, it really is handy to have more than you need so that you can patch up any mistakes you might make when frosting the cake.
When my husband and I took a bite of this, we just looked at each other and both exclaimed “it tastes just like tiramisu!” It really did. You might ask, why not just eat tiramisu? Erm, because making and devouring a tiramisu layer cake is just so much fun! And just look at it – isn’t it gorgeous?! This was one of those serious kitchen pride moments. I love the process of taking an idea, however vague it may be and translating it into something real and beautiful. It’s such a rewarding process! I really do hope you’ll give this cake a try. It might not be the simplest of cakes but it is truly worth the effort, both in terms of taste and appearance! I just can’t get over that ombre effect. *heart eyes emoji*
So, to be clear. This tiramisu cake is made up of four fluffy sponge cake layers – one chocolate, two coffee, one vanilla. Each layer is soaked in rich, sweet coffee syrup and sandwiched with unctuous mascarpone frosting. And then the entire cake is covered in the same mascarpone frosting, in chocolate, coffee and vanilla and dusted generously with cocoa powder. The result? Utter bliss. I couldn’t think of a better birthday cake.
Tiramisu Layer Cake with Ombre Mascarpone Frosting
Ingredients
- 225 g unsalted butter (1 cup)
- 225 g golden caster sugar (1 cup)
- 225 g plain flour (1 1/2 cups)
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda baking soda
- 4 large eggs
- 3 tablespoons milk
- 1/2 vanilla pod seeds scraped
- 1 tablespoon espresso powder
- 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
For the coffee syrup
- 2 tablespoons espresso powder
- 80 g golden caster sugar (1/2 cup)
- 120 ml water (1/2 cup)
For the mascarpone frosting
- 750 g mascarpone (26 ounces)
- 115 g icing sugar (1 cup) sifted
- 1-2 tablespoons milk
- 1/2 vanilla pod seeds scraped
- 1 teaspoon espresso powder
- 25 g 70% dark chocolate (1 ounce)
To finish
- 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 160°C fan/180°C/350°F. Grease and line 2 (or 4 if you have them and the oven space!) 6" loose bottomed cake tins.
- Start by making the base cake mixture. You can make this like you would a regular cake, by creaming the butter and sugar, then beating in the eggs, milk and vanilla and then folding in the flour and raising agents. However, as you're going to be splitting the mixture and adding more flavourings, it really is easiest to simply make this in the food processor. The results are just as good.
- To prepare the cake mixture in the food processor: place the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and bicarb into the bowl of the food processor. Pulse a few times until the ingredients are combined. Add the eggs one by one, processing briefly after each one. Finish by adding the milk and vanilla seeds and process until just combined. Take care not to overmix the batter.
- The next stage requires just a little bit of maths if you'd like to be accurate, but don't worry if you don't have scales or don't want to do this. Weigh the entire batter mix. You then want to separate the batter into 3 portions - half and two quarters. Into the largest portion, carefully fold in the espresso powder. Into one of the smaller portions, fold in the cocoa powder. Leave the remaining smaller portion as it is.
- Split the coffee mixture between the two tins and level the tops. Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Leave to cool for 5 minutes in the tin before removing and transferring to a cooling rack. Clean the tins, grease and line again and pour the vanilla and chocolate portions of the batter into each one. Bake as above.
For the coffee syrup
- Place the espresso powder, sugar and water into a saucepan. Bring to the boil and stir until the sugar has dissolved, Remove from the heat and cool.
For the mascarpone frosting
- Place the mascarpone into a large bowl. Add the icing sugar, 1 tablespoon milk and the vanilla seeds. Using a spatula, stir together until the mixture is smooth, adding up to another tablespoon of milk if needed. Separate the mascarpone as you did the cake mixture - into roughly half and two quarters. If you choose to weigh it, aim for two portions of about 125 g, leaving the remainder in the original mixing bowl.
- Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Leave to cool for one minute. After this time, stir the chocolate into one of the smaller portions of mascarpone. Stir the espresso powder into the other smaller portion of mascarpone. Leave the biggest portion as it is.
To assemble
- Level the tops of the cakes using a bread knife if necessary. Pour the coffee syrup evenly over the tops of the cakes and allow to soak in. The cake will be easiest to assemble if you have a cake turntable in order to achieve a smooth frosting. If not, don't worry, you can go for a more rustic look!
- Place the chocolate cake onto the turntable (or cake stand). Spread a small amount of the vanilla frosting on top (you can do this as thick or as thin as you like, as there will be plenty of frosting). Place a coffee cake on top, followed by more vanilla frosting. Repeat with the remaining coffee cake and the vanilla cake, each time filling with vanilla frosting. Roughly spread some vanilla frosting over the entirety of the cake (crumb coat). Place in the fridge to set for 15 minutes.
- Once chilled, begin the ombre frosting. Starting with the chocolate frosting, very roughly apply the frosting to the bottom quarter of the cake. Next, roughly apply the coffee frosting to the next quarter of the cake. If the two layers overlap, that's good! It adds to the ombre effect. Cover the rest of the cake roughly with vanilla frosting. You will have leftover frosting which is helpful if you need to do any touch ups!
- Smooth out the frosting to achieve a clean finish as in the photos above, or leave the frosting more rustic if you prefer!
- Using a spatula, carefully transfer the cake to a cake stand. Dust the top of the cake liberally with cocoa powder for that final tiramisu touch.
Notes
UPDATE: I’m really grateful for Lindsay and Celine who kindly let me know that they had trouble when making the chocolate portion of the frosting. They found that when they added the chocolate to the mascarpone it went runny and gritty. As a result of this, I chose to re-test that part of the recipe to see if I could figure out what was going on.
When I tested the recipe, I made 3 separate batches of the chocolate part of the frosting. For each batch, I let the chocolate cool for a different length of time, to test the effect it would have and to determine which was the best method. I let the first batch of chocolate cool for 1 minute, the second for 5 minutes and the third for 10 minutes. I was not able to recreate the issue that Lindsay and Celine had, but by far and away the best frosting was made when I let the chocolate cool for a minute only. The chocolate was still pretty hot in this instance, but resulted in a glossy, soft and easy-to-work-with frosting. When the chocolate had cooled for 5 and 10 minutes, the frosting still worked well, but took on more of a mousse-like consistency. Adding about a teaspoon of milk returned the frosting to a more glossy consistency, however, so if you were to leave the chocolate to cool for longer than 1 minute, the recipe would still work.
Celine mentioned that she had made the recipe on a hot day and wondered if that had affected the outcome. When I retested this it was on a cool day (about 17°C) but when I first made the cake it was a lot warmer, about mid-twenties. The recipe worked for me both times. The only other thing I would say is to ensure you use good quality ingredients – the chocolate I used was 74% cocoa although I’m sure anything around 70% would be great.
I hope all of this helps and if anyone has any questions about the method (the recipe has been updated accordingly since testing) or any issues please don’t hesitate to contact me – I’m very happy to help! 🙂
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Don’t even ask me for a nutrition label – this is a celebration cake!! Indulge!
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Vow, check out this cake! What a beauty! Love the ombre frosting:)
Thanks Hana! I was so chuffed with the frosting 🙂
Belated happy birthday Sasha! Oh my goodness, that cake is amazing and perfect and beautiful! The perfect celebration cake, well done x
Thanks Michelle! I certainly had a wonderful birthday eating this cake! 😀
oh my god this cake is incredible! i love the photos and how perfect the frosting is!
Hey Thalia! Glad you like it, I’m really happy with how it turned out! 🙂
WOW. This cake looks incredible!! You’ve inspired me to mess around with Ombre frosting – I shall link back if I upload the creation, thank you! 🙂
I’m happy I’ve inspired you! I would love to see your creations if you have a go 🙂
This is absolutely GORGEOUS! I love your photography <3
Aww thanks so much Aimee! That means a lot as I’m never quite happy with my photography!
This looks incredible! Love the ombré. Where is the cake stand from? It’s beautiful.
Thanks Ruth! The cake stand is from H&M! Isn’t it gorgeous?!
This cake is drop dead gorgeous! I’ll definitely be making this soon!
I really hope you do make it Lindsey! I’d love to see it if you do!!
This is an absolutely beautiful cake and I soooo love tiramisu AND my birthday is coming up so I should probably make this for myself as well!
Oh I think you do! It will be a great birthday present to yourself! Let me know how it turns out if you make it, Shannon 🙂 x
Wooooooow!!!! Sasha, that cake looks absolutely gorgeous! And the photography is amazing, too!
Thank you Lorena! I was so happy with how it all turned out! x
OMG this looks lovely!!! That frosting ??? I do hope you had a good birthday. Just a wee question, if I may – did the 4tsp of baking powder affect taste/texture? It just feels like a lot but your pictures evidently show no negative side effects ? It looks super amazing, can’t wait to give it a try!!!
Hey Hannan! Thank you, you’re so sweet! As for the baking powder – I never ever have self-raising flour in the house and so I always adapt recipes that use it to plain all-purpose + baking powder. I don’t taste it and I have quite a keen palate. And the texture is lovely too. If you do give it a try and find that it doesn’t work for you, do let me know!! I really hope you do make it because it’s delicious! 🙂
Just made this for my mum’s birthday. https://www.instagram.com/p/BJCfzgyA5-K/.
The only thing I had trouble with was the chocolate icing. I found adding the chocolate made the icing go extremely gritty and sloppy – I wonder if the chocolate hadn’t cooled enough? Luckily I had additional vanilla so just added cocoa powder to that and it did the job.
Hope she likes it! 😀
Hey Lindsay! I’m thrilled to hear that you made the cake – it looks delicious!
That’s really valuable feedback about the icing. My instinct would be that you didn’t let it cool enough – I left mine to cool for quite a while so I’ll adjust the recipe to reflect that. I’m happy that you were able to salvage it though!
Hope you and your mum love devouring it! 🙂
Hi Sasha, so good looking cake..am so tempted to try it..where do I find the recipe for chocolate frosting, coffee frosting and the vanilla frosting
Hi Sowmya! The recipe for the frosting is included within the main recipe – basically you make a plain frosting, then divide it up and add coffee and chocolate to two of the portions! It’s explained further within the recipe 🙂
Thank you, cant wait to try!!
This looks amazing, and yes, the photography definitely adds to the effect. Beautiful, so much talent!! I’m going to try it this weekend for my dad’s birthday; I’m a bit (very!) nervous, but the instructions are so clear that I hope it turns out at least partly as expected 🙂 thanks for sharing!
Aww thank you Celine! I’m so happy that you’re going to give it a go! I’d love to see how it turns out! Have a lovely weekend and happy birthday to your dad! 🙂
I did it, I made it! and I had lots of fun doing so 🙂 It is far from being as perfect as yours and I picked up a number of lessons along the way that I’m happy to share.
First, let me say that I am not an experienced baker, so I probably failed where others would have found better solutions.
To start off, there is a heat wave in Brussels these days, and that does not go well with (any sort of) baking, and I don’t have any air-conditioning in the apartment… I tried to assemble the cake as quickly as possible, but the mascarpone frosting warmed up way too quickly and ended up being very runny. I guess I should have taken the time to let it cool again after adding the different ingredients and before spreading it. Because the frosting was not very firm, I could not get a thick enough layer between the cakes or on the sides which was a bit lacking for the overall taste balance.
Also, I did not manage to get that lovely dark colour for the chocolate mascarpone frosting. It ended up gritty and a pale colour (a bit like Lindsay described) and I had let it cool for over 30 minutes (the bowl and content were cool). Does it still need to be slightly (ever so slightly) warm?
My cakes came out really flat (about 1cm thick), but I think there are multiple reasons for that: I started with the blender but the batter just would not blend, so I moved to a regular stand mixer but the ingredients were not in the right order for that. Just a question, how soft is your butter for preparing the cake batter?
Because of the heat, I was very afraid that the whole cake would collapse, so I did not dare pour all the syrup on the cakes – well I should have, it was a little dry.
I watched the video for the ombre frosting, but it was my first try so it wasn’t as neat, although there was a good blend starting there.
OK, so I’m maybe not the best advocate for your recipe, but I insist that I had lots of fun following it and I see the potential. I can’t wait to try it again (as soon as the temperatures go back to normal)
Thanks again!
Oh, I took a picture, not sure if you can see it here? https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154337410245435&set=a.10154284084350435.1073741832.568145434&type=3&theater
Hey again Celine! Thanks so much for your feedback – it really is very valuable to me. Your cake looked lovely! How did it taste?
I’m sorry to hear that you had difficulty making the frosting. I’m going to test the recipe again and see how it turns out. It’s really important to me that the recipe is clear and works well so I’m going to try and get to the bottom of this!
As for the cake batter, it is important to use soft room temperature butter so that all of the ingredients incorporate properly. I don’t recommend using a blender to make the batter, but you can use either the food processor or a stand mixer!
I’m glad that you had lots of fun baking the cake! It certainly looked delicious and I hope it tasted good. I’ll try and get back to you ASAP with the results of my testing so that you can give it a go again! 🙂 x
The taste was great. The combination of the four layers was very nice and the frosting was delicious. Next time I will increase the amount of frosting between the layers and use all the syrup for the cakes and it will be perfect. Strangely (or perhaps not so strange) I found that it tasted even better the next day. I made it in the morning for the dinner that day and found the all the flavours came out even more when enjoying the left overs the next day…
Thanks for all the tips.
Celine! I’m so glad you enjoyed the cake. Just wanted to let you know that I retested the frosting and have updated the post with my findings 🙂
Thank you Sasha, I can’t wait to try it again!
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe! I’ve just thoroughly impressed my family and friends making this cake for my partner’s birthday. I’ve never attempted a layer cake before, nor has my icing extended beyond pouring some ganache or buttercream on top. This was the nicest cake mix I’ve ever tried too! I ate way too much mixture making it. Anyway I doubled the recipe and it still only needed 20 min per cake. They cooked perfectly and ended up having quite a large crumb. I froze them then iced the next day and the ganache drip added a lovely touch. Not to mention it tasted amazing too! Hopefully you can see how beautifully it turned out here. https://instagram.com/p/BLS36mzgD-0/ Thanks again for sharing!
Wow, Debbie! It looks amazing! 😀 I’m so glad you enjoyed the recipe – and for a first attempt at a layer cake you did amazingly well! I love the ganache and all the toppings! Thanks for showing me how it turned out for you 🙂
Hello! I’m making this cake this evening, but I was wondering what you’d recommend as to storing it. I’m assuming the fridge would be the best once it’s assembled.
Hey Kar! Yes, I stored the cake in the fridge. It might be ok in a cool kitchen for a while though, but if you’re keeping it for a few days then definitely the fridge. I hope it turns out well! 🙂
Hi Sasha! Thank you so much for this recipe. I made this cake for my birthday a couple of days ago and it was a massive hit. Very delicious and impressive! Here is my take:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BNm-h1LDCdn/
Just a couple of twists. I added some whipped double cream in the frosting to make it more fluffy and soft. I also added cognac in the frosting and in the syrup, too. It turned out amazing!
Hey Katerina! I’m so happy that you loved the cake! Your tweaks sound delicious and the end result looked wonderful! Thanks so much for making the cake and sharing it with me 🙂
Hi Sasha, I came across your recipe and decided to give it a try. The cake was amazingly delicious! And I just wanted to let you know that I posted it on my blog and shared your recipe link. Thank you for sharing such wonderful recipe.
Hi Fanny! I’m so happy that you made my cake! Your version looked delicious! Thanks for sharing 🙂
This looks amazing! 😀 Just wondered where’s best to store it once it’s made? …fridge or room temp? Container or not? Thank you!
Hi Beth! So glad you like the cake! When I made it I stored it uncovered in the fridge – but let’s face it, it didn’t last long! I’m not a fan of keeping sponge cake in the fridge but I didn’t really want to leave the mascarpone at room temp since it was summer at the time. You might be ok at this time of year but that’s up to you to decide what you’re comfortable with!
Ahh thank you very much, I’ll be making it next week and taking it up to Liverpool for a birthday so I’ll probably keep it in the fridge and try and keep it as cold as possible for the journey. Thank you! Looking forward to making it 🙂
Ooh exciting! Let me know how it goes! 🙂
Hi I would like to know if it is possible to cover the tiramisu cake with fondant.
Hi Reynaldo – you could certainly cover this cake with fondant, although it wouldn’t really taste like tiramisu then! If you’re planning on keeping it for a while, I’d recommend filling the layers with buttercream or jam instead of mascarpone as it will keep better. If you’re planning on eating it soonish though, you could still fill the layers with the mascarpone frosting for that tiramisu taste!
This cake looks amazing and perfect to try for my tiramisu-loving hubby’s birthday! I’ll share how it goes if I do manage some home baking in between building works going on at home and preparing for the impending arrival of a new tiny person in our family lol.
I know I’m a little ‘late to the party’ with this, as the post is not recent. However, on the chocolate frosting issue that your readers had – I wonder whether it was about the temperature of the mascarpone when the melted chocolate was stirred through it? I think if the mascarpone was fairly cool, it would mean the chocolate would cool quickly on bring stirred through it and I think that would cause it to go grainy?
Hi Penny! I hope you get chance to bake the cake – it sounds like you have lots going on! Good luck with everything 🙂
As for the chocolate frosting, it’s really hard to tell what the issue is in individual cases. I know that when I used just melted chocolate and fairly cool mascarpone, it worked out fine! I had a lady email me recently who was having issues based on the brand of mascarpone she was using! I hope it works out for you – do let me know if you have any issues!
Hi. Is it possible to substitute the mascerpone with cream cheese?
Hi Mahdiyah, you could definitely give it a go! I think cream cheese would taste more tangy than mascarpone but as long as you’re ok with that, then fine! The consistency will probably be different though so I can’t guarantee that the frosting would turn out correctly. Let me know how it goes if you try it!
Hi I really like the idea of this recipe and it looks beautiful. I stumbled across it when looking for a coffee layer cake for my bf bday. But I have a question regarding the expresso powder. I was wondering what exactly you used. I live in Spain so might not be able to get it but normal.coffee tends to be stronger here. Are you talking about the grounds that go in a cafetiere? Surely they wouldn’t dissolve properly? Or like instant granules? I can’t figure out exactly what you could use that wouldn’t need hot water first
Hi Emily! The espresso powder I use here in the UK is like an instant coffee powder, but stronger and with finer granules so you don’t need to dissolve it. You could use any instant coffee powder, especially if your coffee is stronger, but you would need to dissolve it first in boiling water – just make sure you replace the volume of liquid of coffee you use for the milk in the cake and frosting. For the syrup, just use some strong coffee, brewed however you like. Alternatively, search for ‘instant espresso’ on Amazon and you’ll find something I’m sure! (I’ve used this one before https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Beverages-Coffee-Tea/Nescaf%C3%A9-37926-Nescafe-Collection-Espresso-Instant-100/B0151ID3LS/ref=sr_1_1_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1501704497&sr=8-1&keywords=instant+espresso )
Hope you love the cake!!
Can you explain a little further what you mean by ‘replace the volume of liquid of coffee you use for the milk in the cake and frosting’? If I need to dissolve the instant coffee ( as I don’t have espresso powder ) do I need to reduce the amount of milk in the entire recipe? I’m a bit confused.
Thank you!
Ah right – sorry! I see that the way I’ve worded this could be a little confusing. So to clarify, I mean that if you were to dissolve the instant coffee in 1 tbsp of hot water, you would need to reduce the volume of milk added to 2 tbsp. Or you could dissolve the instant coffee in 3 tbsp hot water and then don’t use any milk at all. Basically, you need to make sure you’re only adding 3 tbsp of liquid, total.
Does that make sense now? Let me know if not! 🙂
Thank you for the clarification! 🙂 I appreciate it.
I’m planning on making the cake in advance, would you happen to know the best way to store it in the meantime? Say… for 3 days? Does it need to be kept covered in the fridge or should it be kept room temperature? I’m a little worried about leaving it out for a few days in the summer heat…but I also don’t want the cake to toughen up in the fridge. Any advice?
This cake is absolutely amazing, what a showstopper! I can’t stop looking at these pictures and wishing I had a big slice right now just for myself.
xo
I’ve just finished frosting this cake and it’s in the fridge for my boyfriend’s birthday, to be consumed tomorrow or the day after. I forwent the chocolate-coffee ombre and kept my mascarpone vanilla, but tinted it with Wilton’s gel color. I noticed that my mascarpone began to curdle actually after that – it seems to dislike the gel color, so I’m hoping it’ll stay the way I left it and not begin to weep or anything. 🙁 (The leftover cake scraps were quite tasty!)
I haven’t tested the frosting with gel colour so can’t advise how that would turn out – only how it is written in the recipe. I hope you enjoyed eating it!
I’m looking to try this cake for my mums birthday as it looks amazing and she loves tiramisu so what better way to celebrate! I was just wondering if you put the coffee syrup on all the layers of cake, as I wanted to check if that would take away some of the vanilla/chocolate flavours from those two layers?
Hi Rachel! I did put the syrup on all the layers, yes. I found that I could still taste all the flavours – altogether it tasted like tiramisu which is what I was aiming for! If you wanted to leave it off you absolutely could do though 🙂 but it’s delicious with! Hope you love the cake!
Hi! What are the measurement of the cake pan which you used?
Thanks!
Hi Claire, it’s a 6 inch/15cm pan 🙂
This cake came out amazing! Thank you for the wonderful recipe.
So happy you like it Kaitlin! 🙂
This cake looks so good! Do you think it would still be good if the cakes and frosting were made a day before and left in the fridge (or counter?) then assembled the next day?
Yes absolutely! I’d keep the cakes at room temp and the frosting in the fridge. Once assembled, keep in the fridge! And enjoy! 🙂
I love this cake. I made it a few weeks ago and it came out aaaaaaaamaaaaaaazzzing. I made an 8 inch with three big layers instead of four and my cake was very tall. The cream was everrrrrrrryyyythinnnnnng! SO DIVINE! I’m not a cake person but this was to die for!
i decided to have a second attempt today and I don’t know what I’ve done wrong for my cake to sink right to the bottom! I didn’t even open the oven door. Do you have any idea?
Thank you so much for sharing awesome recipe!
I’m so happy that you love the cake!! I’m unfortunately not sure why that might have happened this time as it’s hard to tell without being in the kitchen with you. Did you remember to add the raising agent? I hope you manage to enjoy this cake again soon! 🙂
I tried this recipe last night and, even though I haven’t cut into it yet to see the final result, I know something (if not someTHINGS) went terribly wrong… I just can’t figure out what or why. The consistency of the cake batter, and the cake itself, ended up a bit thick. I’m not sure if that was the point, so that soaking it wouldn’t destroy it, but I feel like it might end up a bit dry. However, the worst part was the mascarpone.
Although I tried getting everything to room temperature, it curdled. Or at least I THINK that’s what happened. It was hard enough to mix as is but, after the additions of cocoa and espresso powder, everything turned into a kind of mush. And there wasn’t nearly enough frosting/filling to go around even though I put very little in between the cake layers and used very small/shallow 5″ cake pans.
When I made my second batch of mascarpone frosting, it came out better. However, the SECOND I started putting it on the cake over the original frosting (after chilling in the fridge) it immediately changed consistencies again. Now I’m not sure what went wrong but the frosting was nothing at all like it should have been. I’m incredibly discouraged from using mascarpone as a frosting ever again…
Would you have any idea at all about what could have happened? I think the frosting still came out tasting fine, but now I’m nervous about the final product. (Will post an update if I decide to bring the cake as planned!)
HI I would like to make this cake but have to make it in advance, will the cake keep for over a day? in fridge or no fridge. Im worried about the frosting becoming watery and lose its volume. Any help would be great Thanks!
Hi! Yes the cake will keep for a couple of days or so in the fridge 🙂
Hello Sasha. I’m 17 years old and still an inexperienced baker. I have an Christmas dinner around the corner and want to impress the family with this gorgeous cake. I am a bit nervous about using a food processor, so will I have the exact same result if using the old-fashioned hand mixer by mixing the wet ingredients first and then adding the dry ingredients?
Hi Renee! I’m so happy you’re making this for Christmas! There’s no need to use a food processor if you don’t want to! Just do it the old fashioned way as you would make any cake – beat butter and sugar, then eggs and then fold the rest of the ingredients in. Good luck and I hope it turns out amazingly for you! Have a lovely Christmas 🙂
Was the butter supposed to be cold? I used softened butter and it coagulated.
Thanks
It should be room temperature- you should be able to depress the butter with your finger but it shouldn’t be near molten. It can be helpful to add a little flour if it’s starting to curdle. Did the cake turn out okay?
Hi,
The cake looks amazing. Quick question, do you weigh your ingredients by grams or cups? I ask because I’m concerned by the conversion of the flour – 225 g flour would be more like 1.8 cups not 1.5. Also, for the caster sugar the top says 225 g is 1 cup, but in the coffee syrup, it says 80 g is .5 cups (ie, 160 g to a cup). If you use the gram measures for the cake, then that is how I will follow (my preferred way anyway :))
Sherri
Hi Sherri! I work in grams primarily as they are always far more accurate than cups. As you can see, there can be such a discrepancy depending on how you measure in cups! So you can confidently use the grams – that’s always what I would recommend when baking 🙂 hope you love the cake!
Wonderful! Thank you – I’m actually happy to read that you work in grams :). As soon as I try this, I will let you know how it turns out.
Can’t wait! 🙂
Hi, do you think i can use freshly brewed espresso with some marsala instead of the the espresso syrup?
Absolutely! Just replace with the same volume of espresso/marsala. It won’t be as sweet of course!
This cake looks so good!! Do you think it would be stable enough for either the middle or top tier for a wedding cake?
Hi Anna! Apologies for the delayed reply. I would recommend storing this cake in the fridge as it has a mascarpone frosting, but if its going to be cool for your wedding, you might get away with it! Alternatively, you could make a buttercream frosting instead?
This looks incredible and I am planning on making it for a 50th birthday party. I am a little nervous about 4 layers and wondered if the cake will need dowels or supports? Your photo of your slice looks perfect and the layers did not appear to slide around, but my experience with frosted layers has been a bit traumatic. I was also thinking of making three batches, instead of making one and splitting it, so that I could use extra batter for chocolate and vanilla cupcakes (I am serving 40 people). What made you decide to have two layers of the coffee flavored cake? Sorry for so many questions, I won’t get a chance to do a test run, but I will make a the cakes a day or two ahead and will assemble the day of the party.
Hi! The cake shouldn’t need dowels, it should hold up just fine as long as your frosting isn’t sloppy. Make sure you chill the cake after frosting and it’ll be more sturdy too. 3 batches sounds like a plan! I went for 2 coffee layers as I wanted to make 4 layers and thought why not emphasise the coffee as it’s tiramisu! Completely arbitrary really. Hope you get on well with the cake, I’m sure you will! Let me know! 🙂
i LOVE your recipe. I have done it three times and have received the best compliments. I went ahead and bought the book that served for inspiration and hope to continue refining my technique this new year.
SO happy to hear this! I love that book (and the bakery in London!) so I hope you love it too!
When you say plain flour do you mean all purpose or cake flour? My all purpose is about 11% protein and cake flour is 9%.
Thanks!
All purpose! Sorry about that- I’ll update the recipe 🙂 enjoy!
This is a treat ! I was scrolling through Pinterest fro Tiramisu inspirations and found this amazing cake on search result. Definitely going to try. Loving the frosting
Amazing, I hope you love the cake!
What an amazing looking cake. I was studying the instructions and was wondering about the oven temp. Is 160°C fan/180°C/350°F means we will be baking with convection? Just making sure 🙂
Thank you for the beautiful post
Hi Lynea! Sorry for the confusion. So yes, if you’re using a fan/convection oven, set it to 160C/320F. For a regular oven, set to 180C/350F. Hope you enjoy the cake!
This cake looks amazing!! I’m thinking of making it for my mother’s 60th but was wondering if I can use the same scale of recipe for 3, 8-inch layers instead?
Also, do you think if I add double cream to the frosting it will lighten the texture? (I’ve used mascarpone before and it can give a heavy consistency) so I was wondering if adding the double cream would give it a buttercream-style frosting?
Thanks!
Hi Millie! The recipe as written will work for two 8-inch layers. If you wanted more layers than that I’d recommend doubling the recipe or you could split the two layers in half! I haven’t tried adding double cream to this frosting but as written it’s really not super heavy. I think you could fold a little whipped cream into it if you wanted it to be lighter though- let me know if you give it a try!
It was a hit!!! The recipe worked fine for 3 layers and I the double cream in the frosting was a success 🙂 Everyone LOVED it! Thank you for sharing the fab recipe, I’m sure it will be my go-to now for special occassions!
I thought I’d share a photo of a slice:
https://i.pinimg.com/750x/90/2f/d0/902fd059ee0149a89aedee4bb19015c7.jpg
Oh yay! That makes me so happy to hear 🙂 thank you for sharing a photo – it looks amazing! So glad everyone enjoyed it!
Hello, your cake looks delicious! My daughter is making it for a friend. We don’t drink coffee but we have coffee pods for a coffee machine we use when we have guests. Could I open a pod and use the coffee inside for the cake? And for the frosting? How much water would I dissolve it in for the frosting? Thanks so much!
Hi, I’m sure you’ve already made the cake by now but if not, I would simply suggest replacing the milk in both the cake and the frosting recipe with cooled brewed coffee from your machine (ideally espresso!) rather than using the ground coffee from inside the pod. Apologies for the delay in responding, hope you love/d the cake!
My friend had been asking me to make tiramisu for her for so long but I wanted to make a special layered cake for her birthday, so this was the perfect combination! I made this a 3-layer 8 inch cake and paired it with some hazelnut cocoa ice cream my friend made, and it was *chefs kiss*. Also had never tried mascarpone frosting before and was a HUGE fan. Thanks for sharing this recipe!
Oh that sounds like the perfect birthday treat! Hazelnut cocoa ice cream would be delicious alongside. I’m so glad you enjoyed it! Thank you for letting me know 🙂