Blogging Marathon #137 Week 1, Day 1
Theme : Sweets

For the first day, I have a Chantilly cake, a vanilla cake with fresh cream, mascarpone cheese and cream cheese for frosting. I have followed the recipe from the preppy kitchen and it’s a good idea to look at their YouTube tutorial before baking the cake. A regular fresh cream frosting wouldn’t have this much of sugar in it, so the berries do an excellent job of balancing it by bringing a little bit of tartness to the cake.

For the base cake, any vanilla cake would do. I have used an old recipe I fall back on regularly. I can’t believe that these are recipes I have been repeating for over 8 years now! Anyway, you can use any vanilla cake as the base recipe. Bake the cake and let it cool down completely.

Berries are in this cake in the form of a jam layer and also as fresh berries. For the jam layer, we need to make it spreadable, so microwave it with a little water until it melts. Set aside. . You need to start off by chopping the strawberries and adding it to blue berries and raspberries along with juice and zest of a lemon. I used only half a lemon here and it was perfect in my opinion.

Now for the frosting, beat mascarpone cheese and cream cheese together. Add sugar and continue beating until it’s smooth and fluffy. In a separate bowl, whip fresh cream until it holds shape. Fold it into the mascarpone cheese mix. You have the frosting ready.

Now assemble the cake. You can use a simple syrup to soak the cake layers, if preferred. Fill it with a thin layer of jam, then top it with the frosting and add the berries on top. Repeat for all the cake layers and frost it and decorate with berries. Now, refrigerate until the time of serving and enjoy!

Ingredients:

• Two 8”vanilla cakes
• 1/2 cup mixed berry jam
• 2 tablespoons water
• 3 cups mixed berries
• Juice and zest of 1/2 lemon
• 16oz mascarpone cheese, room temp
• 8oz cream cheese at room temp
• 3 cups icing sugar
• 2 cups fresh cream
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Method:

1. Mix the jam with water, microwave it for 20-30 sec until it’s warmed. Stir well and set aside.
2. Slice strawberries and mix with the rest of the berries. Add zest and juice of the lemon. Set aside.
3. Beat the mascarpone cheese and cream cheese together using a hand or stand mixer. Add the sugar and beat until it’s smooth and fluffy. Keep aside.
4. In a separate bowl, whip the fresh cream and vanilla until soft peaks form.
5. Fold into the mascarpone and mix in carefully.
6. Cake Assembly- cut each cake into two layers. Anchor one layer into a cake base using a little frosting. Add an evenly thin coat of jam to this layer. Top it with the mascarpone mix. Top with 1/3 of the berries. Cover with the next layer of the cake and repeat this. Once the cake is assembled, do a thin crumb coating and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
7. Once the crumb coat is set, add one more thick coat of frosting and decorate as you wish.