Chocolate Cake with Chocolate and Mascarpone Cream
Although a week late, today I will tell you the fabulous chocolate cake that I prepared for my birthday.
Given that you only turn 25 (!) once, I thought of preparing a really decadent, oozing filling, colossal, instant party, “tout chocolat” cake.
I had recently seen a recipe online for American chocolate cake that from the photos I would not hesitate to define “sexy”, so I started working to reproduce it, adapting the American cake, which was true calorie bomb, to more Italian tastes.
In the end, I easily got a very soft chocolate cake, perfect for the filling and icing, which I enriched with a voluptuous chocolate and mascarpone cheese cream.
So let’s start from the cake recipe, which will yield the two cake rounds that make up the dessert.
Chocolate Cake for filling
Ingredients
- 185 g of 00 flour
- 300 grams of sugar
- 85 g of cocoa
- 7 g of baking powder
- 7 g of baking soda
- 2 eggs at room temperature
- 185 g of buttermilk *
- 185 g of Greek yogurt
- 100 g of vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 175 ml of boiling water or freshly brewed espresso coffee
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180°C and line two, 20 cm round baking pans with parchment paper (grease and flour the pan with butter and breadcrumbs). I used the disposable aluminum type that can be found at the supermarket, without any issues.
- In a large bowl (even that of a stand mixer, if you have one) mix the eggs, buttermilk, yogurt, oil, and vanilla; add the sugar, then the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and baking soda together, little by little, working the batter with the electric whisks.
- Add the water or coffee and mix slowly until the water has been well absorbed and incorporated into the batter, which must remain liquid enough to be poured into the cake pans without effort.
- Divide the batter into the two previously prepared cake pans and cook the cakes for 20-25 minutes until they appear cooked well, even in the middle.
- Remove the cakes from the oven, and let them cool for a few minutes, then turn them on a plate to remove them from the baking pans.
- Allow the two cake bases to cool completely, or even better, place them in the freezer for half an hour before assembling the complete dessert with mascarpone cream
Once the base is prepared, here are the instructions for the chocolate and mascarpone cream, which we will use both as filling, and as frosting for our chocolate cake.
Chocolate and mascarpone cream
Ingredients
- 300 grams of dark chocolate
- 300 grams of fresh cream
- 50 g of butter at room temperature
- 250/300 grams of mascarpone cheese
Instructions
- In a saucepan heat the cream until it starts to boil; in the meantime, while the cream is heating, coarsely chop the chocolate with a knife.
- In a bowl, add the cream and chocolate and mix them with a hand whisk until you get a smooth liquid cream, then add the butter, which will melt immediately, and stir again.
- The cream thus obtained is nothing more than a simple ganache. To make it similar to a frosting, let it cool for about half an hour, then add the mascarpone and blend all, with the electric mixer, to obtain a light and frothy cream.
- The doses of mascarpone are indicative: depending on the density of the cream you want to obtain, you can add more, or reduce the cheese.
- When the mascarpone cream is ready, use it to fill and cover the cake with the help of a spatula.
- The cake is kept in the fridge until half an hour before serving, and keeps delicious for 3 or 4 days (maybe even later, but mine didn't last longer!)
(*) in case you do not know what it is, buttermilk is what is left when cream turns into butter; you can find it in large supermarkets, or in organic stores, but you can also prepare it at home as I explain here , it’s fun and educational!
