When you have a baking blog, the day of your birthday is transformed magically into one of the best days of the year. If you can make cakes like this, there is no doubt that suddenly, your birthday turns into a great show of sweet where we get the best of our pastry skills. And if it turns out that I do it for myself, then you give it all so that the resulted cake is as spectacular as this one!
This cake is inspired by something very simple that drives me crazy, strawberries with chocolate. I am sure once you have given yourself the luxury of eating a chocolate fondue with strawberries, mother of God! Will there be something better than that?! Well, with a tremendous delicacy in mind, I created this cake. Nothing really complicated, you will see. Indeed, I just combined my two favorite chocolate and strawberry sponge cake recipes with my favorite mascarpone filling cream and a buttercream of cream cheese and chocolate that is to die for.
An essential ingredient of my birthday cakes is chocolate. I always make super chocolate cakes, here I leave those of the previous 2 years, only suitable for chocolate lovers!
Chocolate Mascarpone Cake with Berries
But this year’s I think wins the price as far as foodporn is concerned! Sometimes I feel like I am a little genius creating monsters like these ones that would make the will of even the strongest waver, muahahaha (malignant laughter).
An essential ingredient of my birthday cakes is chocolate. I always make super chocolate cakes, here I leave those of the previous 2 years, only suitable for chocolate lovers! But this year’s I think wins the price as far as foodporn is concerned! Sometimes I feel like I am a little genius creating monsters like these ones that would make the will of even the strongest waver, muahahaha (malignant laughter).
Although, the truth is that the chocolate in my birthday cakes is simply to help me overcome the depression of getting older. Yes, I confess: I am one of those people who hate birthdays. Well, I have not always hated them, I hate them since I exceeded an age when I started to feel like an old lady. And there is nothing I can do to stop the counting … I think it is a matter of inheritance, my father hates his birthday too.
On top of that, when you are a blogger and it is your birthday, you do not make the cake the day of your birthday of course. Obviously, I’m not superman, I bake the cake a minimum of a week in advance to shoot the pictures, post-process them and write the post so that it can be posted the day of my actual birthday. Therefore, it is like a slow torture that begins several days before and that whispers to you; “You see, you are getting ooooooold” and “if you continue eating cake like those ones you are going to become a whaaaaaaale”.
But hey, you know what? That I’m going to fit a strawberry in each ear to not hear the whispers, and old, whale or whatever, I’m going to eat the last piece of this beast and enjoy it guys that life is short! So, happy birthday to me 🙂
Decadent Chocolate Strawberry Cake
(3 votos, promedio: 1.33 de 5)
Loading...Ingredients
- CHOCOLATE CAKE:
- 200 g flour
- 6 Tbsp dark cocoa powder
- 2 and ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp of salt
- 350 g of sugar
- 120 ml of sunflower oil
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup of coffee
- 200 ml buttermilk
- 1 and ½ tsp vanilla extract
- STRAWBERRY Cake:
- 150 g strawberries (fresh or frozen)
- 250 g flour
- 2 and ½ tsp of baking powder
- 1 pinch of salt
- 350 g of sugar
- 120 ml of sunflower oil
- 4 eggs
- 200 ml milk
- 1 and ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 2 drops pink food colouring paste
- FILLING MASCARPONE CREAM:
- 250 g Mascarpone(cold)
- 3 Tbsp of icing sugar
- 200 ml heavy cream (very cold)
- ½ tsp strawberry extract
- 1 drop pink food colouring paste
- BUTTERCREAM DE CHOCOLATE:
- 240g butter (at room temperature)
- 225 g cream cheese (Philadelphia)
- 250 g pure cocoa powder
- 2 tsp of vanilla extract
- 500 g icing sugar
- 50 ml milk
Instructions
To prepare the chocolate cake, preheat the oven to 170ºC and grease two pans of approximately 15 cm in diameter.
In a bowl sift the flour, cocoa, yeast and salt. Reserve. In another bowl mix the sugar with the oil. Incorporate the eggs and beat until it's integrated, you can do it perfectly by hand. Add half of the dry ingredients and mix until incorporated. Pour the coffee, buttermilk and vanilla extract and mix a little more. Finally, incorporate the rest of the dry ingredients by mixing until there are no lumps in the dough.
Fill the pans with half of the dough in each and bake for about 40 minutes. In any case, test the stick in the centre of the cake before removing it from the oven. This cake is very moist and it takes time to bake so be sure is baked before removing it. Cool the cakes on a rack.
To prepare the strawberry cakes repeat step 1. Clean and blend the strawberries with the blender until you have a fine purée. Reserve. In a bowl sieve the flour with the yeast and the salt. In another bowl mix the sugar with the oil. Incorporate the eggs and beat until they are integrated. Add the strawberry puree. Pour in half the flour and mix lightly. Now incorporate milk and vanilla extract. Mix a little more and finish adding the rest of the flour and mixing until there are no lumps. The dough will be a very pale pink, to make it more intense add two drops of food colouring and mix until the colour is uniform throughout the dough.
Fill the pans with half of the dough in each and bake at 170 ° C for about 45 minutes. Remember as always check that they are well cooked by doing the stick test. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely on a rack.
To prepare the filling mascarpone cream, beat the mascarpone with the icing sugar using the sticks until creamy, about 1 minute. Add the cream that must be very cold and beat at high speed until it gets thick, for about 2 minutes.
Finally, prepare the buttercream with fresh cheese, beating the butter with the cheese at high speed for about 2 minutes. Make sure to peel the cream off the sides of the bowl from time to time. Add the cocoa and the vanilla extract and beat again, first at very low speed so as not to finish the whole kitchen full of cocoa during, and then at high speed for 1 minute. Add half the icing sugar, beat at medium-high speed for 1 minute. Add the rest of the sugar and beat for 2 more minutes. Finally, you can add the milk and bat for 1 extra minute. If the buttercream is too thick, you can add 1 or 2 tablespoons of milk more.
Once the sponge cakes are cold, cut the chocolate cakes into two equal halves, so that you have 4 layers of chocolate sponge cake and 2 layers of strawberry biscuit that are the same height. To assemble the cake, we started by placing the first layer of chocolate base. We cover it with mascarpone cream and strawberry and cover with a layer of strawberry sponge cake.
Repeat the step alternating layers of chocolate sponge cake and strawberry with mascarpone cream as a filling until you get all the cream and cover with the last layer of chocolate sponge cake. Take one last look at the structure, check that it is completely straight and you can start by covering the cake with the chocolate buttercream.
As you can see, the buttercream is very unctuous, so this time I have not given any layer covers crumbs, it is not necessary. Simply apply generous amounts of buttercream throughout the cake and distribute it in a way that is even. You can use the spatula to finish the water or smooth it with the shovel.
To decorate I have used strawberries dipped in chocolate that I prepared the day before and left to harden, chocolate macarons, some chips and some chocolate mini chocolates I made with a silicone mold.
Notes
Keep the cake in the fridge if it is not consumed in a few hours after the preparation.
Sweet dreams,
4 Comments
Emeric
April 7, 2018 at 5:24 pm“Keep the cake in the fridge if it is not consumed in a few hours after the preparation.”
Sorry, I can’t process this sentence. Is there such a concept as “leftover cake”?
Raquel Ramos
April 8, 2018 at 3:00 pmHahahahaha, yes well for this kind of cake and depending of the number of people eating, yes there must be “leftover cake”. It is either that or spending one weekend at the hospital, and I don’t want to be responsible for that.
Rita
June 30, 2018 at 9:16 pmI would like clarification. You state to divide chocolate layers into 4. But in the picture it only shows 5 layers. Is one of the layers thrown away? Thank you
Raquel Ramos
July 1, 2018 at 8:25 pmHi Rita, you are right there is actually a mistake there. I baked this cake in 3 separate pans 6″ pans. It is sometimes difficult to explain how to get the layers since every person has different staff at home. But you could get 4 layers actually if you want, I did cupcakes with the extra dough I got, if you don’t do them you can have thicker layers or make 4 chocolate layers if that’s what you want.
I hope that helped clarifying your question!