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This Berry Mascarpone Layer Cake has layers of fluffy vanilla cake, fresh berry filling and mascarpone whipped cream frosting! It’s light, fruity and perfect for spring!
Berry Mascarpone Layer Cake
I never really realized how much of an effect caffeine has until I stopped drinking it recently. As part of the IVF process, caffeine isn’t really recommended so I’ve been doing my best to not drink it. Since soda has less caffeine than coffee, I’ll have a little if I’m desperate. I’d rather have coffee though. 🙁 Much more yummy.
Point is though – the lack of a picker-upper is brutal! And the tiredness is making me crave a way to increase energy so now I just want to eat all the carbs and sugar, which I’m also avoiding. Sometimes I feel like I just can’t eat anything. It’s not a good situation. I’ve gotta find a way to muster up some energy!
My go-to move right now is to play some of my favorite music and dance around while working. Gets the blood flowing and pumps me up. 🙂 Yay for 90s music! That’s my era.
And this is my cake.
Boy, do I love this cake! Fresh berries are some of the best things ever and we’ve had them galore for the last month or so. I can’t get enough of them! Especially the blueberries and strawberries. I just want to eat a carton at a time. And I can eat fruit – yay! 🙂
How to Make Berry Mascarpone Layer Cake
This cake starts with a moist and easy vanilla cake. The batter is so easy to put together, you could simply use a whisk to combine everything if you wanted. I always love a good stand mixer – it takes the work out of it for you – but you could do it by hand. Just combine the dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately, then add them all together with a little water. Done! Plus, the ingredients are all nice and straight forward. Rock on.
Then there’s the berry filling. You could almost think of it as a homemade jam, but not quite as thick. I used an even mix of strawberries, blueberries and raspberries, but you could use whatever combo you like. The berries are purred in a food processor, then cooked over heat with some sugar and cornstarch. The heat reduces the liquid a bit and the cornstarch helps thicken everything. Once it’s cooled, you’ve got the perfect berry filling!
The mascarpone whipped cream frosting is used both to add to the cake filling and to frost the cake. I love how light this frosting is! You basically make whipped cream and add mascarpone cheese to it. The mascarpone flavor is lighter than a more straight forward mascarpone frosting, but this version runs much less risk of getting a super soft mascarpone frosting. Just be sure to add the full amount of powdered sugar to make sure the frosting stays stable. It makes a great addition to the cake and keeps things light and fresh!
The final cake is perfect for spring, Easter and all through the summer! It was a huge hit!
Watch How To Make It
SHOP THE RECIPE
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Berry Mascarpone Layer Cake
- Prep Time: 45 minutes
- Cook Time: 26 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 11 minutes
- Yield: 12-14 Slices
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Description
This Berry Mascarpone Layer Cake has layers of fluffy vanilla cake, fresh berry filling and mascarpone whipped cream frosting! It’s light, fruity and perfect for spring!
Ingredients
VANILLA CAKE
- 2 1/2 cups (325g) all purpose flour
- 2 cups (414g) sugar
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup (240ml) milk
- 1/2 cup (120ml) vegetable oil
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup (240ml) water
BERRY FILLING
- 1 1/2 cup (240g) mixed berries (I used strawberries, blueberries and raspberries)
- 3 tbsp (45ml) water
- 3/4 cup (155g) sugar
- 3 tbsp cornstarch
WHIPPED MASCARPONE FROSTING
- 2 1/2 cups (600ml) heavy whipping cream, cold
- 1 1/2 cups (173g) powdered sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 16 oz (452g) mascarpone cheese, chilled
Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350°F (176°C) and prepare three 8 inch cake pans with non-stick baking spray and parchment paper in the bottom. These cakes can have a tendency to stick to the pans a bit, so I strongly recommend the parchment paper in the bottom.
2. Add the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt to a large mixer bowl and combine. Set aside.
3. Add the milk, vegetable oil, vanilla extract and eggs to a medium sized bowl and combine.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and beat until well combined.
5. Slowly add the water to the batter and mix on low speed until well combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed to make sure everything is well combined.
6. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared cake pans and bake for 24-28 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs.
7. Remove the cakes from oven and allow to cool for 2-3 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack to finish cooling. These cakes can have a tendency to stick to the pans a bit so jiggle them a bit to loosen from the sides of the pan before turning the cakes out to cool.
BERRY FILLING
8. To make the berry topping, add the berries and water to a food processor and puree until smooth. You should end up with about 2/3 cup puree.
9. Combine the sugar and cornstarch in a medium saucepan. Stir in the berry puree.
10. Cook over medium heat, stirring consistently until mixture thickens and comes to a boil, about 8-10 minutes.
11. Allow to boil for 1 minute, then remove from heat. Refrigerate and allow to cool completely.
FROSTING AND ASSEMBLY
12. Add the heavy whipping cream, powdered sugar and vanilla extract to a large mixer bowl and whip on high speed until soft peaks form.
13. Add the mascarpone cheese to the whipped cream and whip until stiff peaks form. It will happen fairly quickly.
14. To assemble the cake, use a large serrated knife to remove the domes from the top of the cakes.
15. Place the first layer of cake on a serving plate or a cardboard cake round. Pipe a dam of frosting around the outside of the cake. I use Ateco tip 808 for the dam so that it’s tall.
16. Spread half of the berry filling evenly on top of the cake layer, inside the dam. It should fill the dam about half way full.
17. Add some additional mascarpone frosting to the top of the berry filling and spread into an even layer to fill in the remaining dam space.
18. Add the second layer of cake and repeat the filling layer with the remaining berry filling and additional mascarpone frosting.
19. Add the final layer of cake on top, then smooth out the frosting around the sides of the cake.
20. Frost the outside of the cake, then use an icing decorator (I use this Ateco Icing Smoother ) to add a striped pattern to the sides.
21. Finish off the cake with some swirls of frosting and fresh berries.
22. Refrigerate cake until ready to serve. Cake is best for 2-3 days.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 Slice
- Calories: 678
- Sugar: 53 g
- Sodium: 216.6 mg
- Fat: 40 g
- Carbohydrates: 74 g
- Protein: 8.7 g
- Cholesterol: 118.4 mg
Enjoy!
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While this cake tasted delicious when covered in frosting and layered with fruit filling, the cakes came out sort of “wet” and dense and without a real dome. I did not make any substitutions except for using frozen berries which I thawed before pureeing. The batter was much thinner than I am used to in a cake batter. Unless you have other suggestions, I may try this again with less or maybe no water at all. 2 cups of liquid plus oil just seems like too much liquid.
It is a very thin batter. Did you test the cakes with a toothpick before removing them from the oven to make sure they were done? I use a toothpick and stick it in the center. There should just be a few moist crumbs sticking to it when the cake is ready.
Oh my gosh! This cake is phenomenal! The cake layers baked up moist and delicious! The mixed berry jam filling is delicious and perfect. The marscapone whipped cream frosting turned out great too! Thank you for this recipe! ❤️????❤️
If using this recipe to make cupcakes, how do you fill the cupcakes with the grit filling?
Hi
!
I made this cake last Sunday for my birthday/Easter, and it was a success !
My grandma asked which bakery it came from and didn’t believe me when I told her I baked it, and my dad got a second slice (when he usually won’t finish the 1st slice !). I’m keeping the berry filling and frosting recipes on hand 😉
I did have an issue with the cake batter being very runny, though, so the cakes took longer to fully bake and looked a little underbaked. No one talks about this in the comments, so I’m guessing I was the problem, ha ! I weighed every ingredients and used the ml measurements, so maybe it came from there ? :/
Ok, I’m off now to bake cupcakes to use the leftover frosting 🙂
Hi 🙂
I have made this last week. I followed the recipe exactly. The cake banter looked just like your in the video. But it turned out very dense and doughy. Any idea where I made a mistake? Thank you. I loved the flavor and would absolutely make this again. Thanks
Eva
I made this for friends last weekend… none was left! It came out wonderfully. I had no issue with sticking, at all.
I am making it for this Friday for my daughter’s small reception after her wedding. There are only 10 people. There will have to be a tweak of lactose free milk and I’m going to make an amoretto ‘buttercream’ with Earth Balance butter. Should be good!
Thanks so much!
So glad to hear it was a hit! Thanks Jeananne!
Hello!
I’ve been desperately trying to find a really good vanilla recipe that uses veg oil instead of butter and this ones sounds yummy! I’ve tried COUNTLESS recipes and all of them end up tasting like flour 🙁 I mean no sweetness to it.
I tried this one last night and I feel like I’m still struggling with that. I read somewhere about measuring the flour wrong because I was using my measuring cup to measure the flour so I now have a new batch in the oven that I measured “correctly”. Hoping it comes out good! Any suggestions???
Also… tried the berry recipe also and it is phenominal! I mixed it with some of my buttercream recipe and it was YUM!!
Thanks for sharing! ❤️
Yes, measuring the flour accurately is very important. I include measurement in grams because I actually weight it just to be sure. A food scale can be purchased for relatively inexpensive, if you’d like to try it. Usually you can find one at Target or similar places.
Made this for Easter and it was amazing! I made two changes however. I added lemon zest to the cake batter and I used a mixed berry jam for the filling. The sweet and the sour played off so nicely. Highly recommend and definitely a new family favorite!
I loved this cake recipe! I like to experiment with cake recipes (cake, fruit spread, mascarpone frosting). Could you make cupcakes using these original ingredients in the cake in some way? I find it’s easier to serve individual cakes…
I would think so. You could use the berry puree as a filling – maybe add a little whipped cream to it or something to give it some volume?
Beautiful cake. Just wanted to say that i made this as a trifle instead. Omitted the berry puree.
I just baked the cakes as mentioned. Made the frosting as is. Diced cake in bite size pieces. Then layered them in the trifle bowl using blueberries,raspberries, and sliced strawberries in between cake pieces and delicious mascarpone frosting. Everyone at Easter Dinner Raved.
Thanks
Great idea! Glad it was a hit!
Awesome cake. Highly recommended. I realized I had 9 1/2 inch pans not 8 “. Worked anyway. Everyone loved it not a piece was left!
I saw the video for this on Facebook, and I knew it would be perfect for Easter. I’ve never attempted something like this before, but it turned out great! A few things: I couldn’t find 8″ pans, so I used 9″ and baked for 22 min. The layers were kind of thin, but they worked. I was kind of worried that there wouldn’t be enough Berry filling, so I used two cups of berries and adjusted the water, sugar, and cornstarch accordingly. I liked having the weighted measurements on there, but I think the one for the heavy whipping cream may be off. My scale showed 2.5 cups as being 578mL. I didn’t want to try to get to the 720 and ruin things, so I just did 2.5c. That was easily the best frosting I’ve ever made. Wow! I did notice, and this is probably a matter of preference, but I feel like the flavors shined through better after sitting out a little than just out of the fridge. I had Berry filling and frosting left over (which is not a complaint 😉 ).
Lindsay,
After letting the cake set up in the refrigerator, I then added the fruit, it worked just fine. We had it for Easter and we got awesome reviews. Great recipe. Thank you for your input and advice.
My layers did not come out as thick. Would you know why?
So, I made this cake this morning. Hoping it tastes better than it looks! The frosting flavor is heavenly, but how the hell did you get it to that consistency? My frosting is very light and fluffy, so I just couldn’t get it to be smooth like that – what is your secret?
I’m not sure where the issue is. My frosting is also light and fluffy. It’s basically whipped cream with powdered sugar for stabilization and sweetness and some cream cheese for flavor (and also a stabilizer).
Hi! My frosting is very light and difficult to frost with. How long do you leave it in the fridge before frosting the cake? Do you think putting it in the freezer for a quick 10 minutes to firm it up would work? Thanks!
You shouldn’t even need to refrigerate it for it to be ok to use. If your mascarpone cheese was too warm though, that could make it difficult. You could certainly try refrigerating it for about 10 minutes. It won’t hurt it.
OMG, this looks so yummy. Wish I can make this beautiful looking cake.