This Italian Berry cake with mascarpone is a light and delicious layer cake that is so easy to make. This cake is perfect for the non-baker because it does not require any special cake decorating skills to pull off a beautiful presentation.
It is almost as easy as making a trifle and any imperfections in the cake can easily be covered up when assembling. This easy Italian sponge cake is a great recipe to have on hand when you want to quickly throw together a delicious layer cake.
The ingredients you will need for this Italian sponge cake recipe are:
- All Purpose Flour
- Granulated Sugar
- Mascarpone cream (you can find this in the refrigerated specialty cheese section of your grocery store).
- Fresh berries
- Sour Cream
- Eggs
- Vanilla
- Baking powder and Salt
While this is a berry cake, you can also substitute any fresh seasonal fruit that is soft and requires no cooking. Figs make a great fruit that would look beautiful. Just slice the figs into slices for the middle and leave them whole for the top! For this recipe, I used a mix of summer berries but you could also make this with just one type of berry. It is fully customizable!
Steps to making this Italian sponge cake:
- You sift all your dry ingredients into a large bowl.
- Add your wet ingredients and mix well with a hand or stand mixer.
- Pour your batter into 2 prepared baking pans (to prepare baking pans: add baking spray or butter the pans then add a little flour to prevent the cake from sticking after baking)
- Bake!
The Mascarpone Frosting:
The mascarpone frosting is actually more of a cream layer than a frosting and so easy to make. You are just taking room temperature mascarpone cheese and sour cream and adding vanilla and honey to it and whipping it until it is light and airy.
You can use this frosting recipe on so many other desserts, not just this cake. You can also serve it along side fresh fruit or cake in place of whipped cream. It is a real keeper recipe!
This mascarpone frosting that is sandwiched in between and on top of the cake is very light and not too sweet and makes the perfect partner to the berries. This cake makes a great addition to your special occasions (how I use it) or for summertime BBQs because of the freshness.
For more Italian dessert ideas:
Italian Berry Cake with Mascarpone
Ingredients
Cake
- 1 ⅓ cup of unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1 ⅓ cups of all purpose flour
- 1 ⅓ cups of sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 large eggs
- 1 ½ teaspoon of baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon of salt
Cream Filling and Decorating
- 4-6 tablespoon of fresh preserves raspberry or mixed berry preserves works great!
- 16 oz of fresh berries I use blackberries, strawberries and raspberries
- 2 small tubs of mascarpone 2- 8 oz tubs of mascarpone (16 ounces total) taken out of the refrigerator 1 hour before using to soften.
- 1 small tub 8 oz of sour cream
- ½ cup of honey or more to taste if your like your cream more sweet
- 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
Instructions
- Pre-heat your oven to 325 degrees.
- Prepare 2, 8 inch or 9 inch round cake pans by greasing them and then dusting them with some flour and set aside.
- Now, sift all of your dry ingredients for your cake mix into a large bowl.
- Next add your eggs, vanilla and butter and mix with a hand mixer or stand mixer on medium speed for about 1 minute. Your batter should be thick but not too thick to spread in the cake pans.
- Now divide your batter into the 2 cake pans evenly. If it is not spreding easily, grease the back of a large spoon and use that to spread the batter around on the cake pan to reach the edges
- Place into the oven for 25-30 minutes until the cake is golden on top and a toothpick in the center comes out clean.
- When done, place on cooling racks for 5 minutes.
- After 5 minutes, run a knife along the edges of the cake to make sure it is not sticking to the side and then turn the cakes upside down onto the cooling rack and give a few good taps to the bottom of the cake pans to loosen them from the pan. They should pop out easily after doing this! If they do not, keep giving the bottom of the pans a few more good taps until they do.
- Let sit until completely cooled, about 30 minutes.
- Cream and topping
Cream Filling
- In a medium bowl, add your mascarpone, sour cream, honey and vanilla and mix on medium speed with a hand mixer until it is smooth and creamy.
Assembling
- Take one of your cakes and place it on a plate. Now add a few spoonfuls of your preserves and spread it all around on the cake in a thin layer.
- Next take ½ of your mascarpone cream and spread that over top of your cake and preserves. Next, add ½ of your fresh berries evenly over the cream.
- Add your next cake over the top of this and gently press it into place.
- Repeat the steps above with the preserves, cream and berries. optional: dust the top with powdered sugar before serving
- Enjoy!
Nutrition
Nutrition Values are estimates only.
See full nutrition disclaimer here
Albert Bevia says
This is the perfect cake for me, I am not much of a baker, and it seems simple enough to make...plus it looks so beautiful and tasty
Melissa says
Thanks Albert! Yes, it is a very easy cake that tastes good AND is has a beautiful presentation without any complicated baking techniques 🙂 This was the first cake that I learned to make!
AC says
hey there! i'm excited to make this today -- for the mascarpone, is it 8oz total or 16oz total (2 x 8oz tubs)? thanks so much!
Melissa says
Hi. So sorry I am just receiving this. It is 2 tubs so 16 oz total. You can get away with half the amount though and it will still be amazing!
Hope you enjoy it 🙂
Erica Straff says
Can I make this cake the day before I need it. Will the marscapone filling stay stable?
Melissa Oleary says
Hi Erica.
You can make this ahead of time but you would need to refrigerate it and then bring it back to room temperature so the mascarpone filling is soft when serving. You can also make the cake portion (not the filling) the day before and make the filling portion and assemble it the day you need it. I hope this helps 🙂
Sarah says
This was perfect and looked beautiful!
Annemarie says
Delicious! Thank you. Can it be frozen and used later? I made too much!
Melissa says
Hi Annemarie.
I am so glad you enjoyed it! I haven't tried freezing the cake but it should do well since both cake and cream freeze well. If you do freeze it, make sure to wrap it with plastic wrap tightly to prevent freezer burn. I would thaw it in the fridge overnight to let it gradually come back to room temp.
Let me know how it works out 🙂
Annemarie says
Thank you! It's the frosting I made too much of so I'll only freeze that. I'll let you know how it goes -- I hope it's fine! Thanks for sharing all this!