Homemade Half Cake
Servings: 10
Ingredients
For the layers:
- 1 ½ cups/ 180 g all-purpose flour
- 3 large eggs
- 1 cup/ 200 g brown sugar
- ¼ cup / 80 ml olive oil or other vegetable oil
- ⅔ cup / 160 g sour cream
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the frosting:
- 17.6 oz/ 500 g mascarpone
- ⅞ cup / 200 ml heavy cream, cold
- ½ cup / 60 g icing sugar
- 2 teaspoon almond extract
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2.1 oz/ 60 g dark chocolate, optional
Instructions
Layers:
- Preheat oven to 350º F/ 180º C. Line two 7 inch/ 18 cm cake pans with circles of parchment paper.
- In a large mixing bowl combine flour, sugar and baking powder. Whisk until combined.
- Add the eggs and vanilla and continue whisking. The mixture will become very thick. Add the oil and mix again. Add also the sour cream. At this point you can exchange the whisk with a rubber spatula. Mix gently, until smooth.
- Divide the batter between the two prepared pans. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.
- Let the layers cool completely before assembling the cake.
Frosting:
- In a large mixing bowl whip the cold heavy cream until fluffy but not too thick.
- In a separate bowl combine mascarpone, icing sugar, vanilla and almond extract. Beat them for few seconds, to combine.
- Using a rubber spatula combine the two mixtures, adding from the whipped cream to the mascarpone. Mix gently until the frosting becomes uniform.
To assemble:
- Using a long serrated knife cut horizontally the cake bases into two layers each. Then stack them evenly and half them vertically. That way you will end up with half 8 layers.
- Reserve about ½ to 1cup frosting for decoration.
- Place one half on a serving plate and spread some frosting on top. Cover with another layer. Continue the process until using all the layers. Make sure you have enough frosting to cover the cake all around (apart from the already reserved one).
Decoration:
- You can pipe the reserved white frosting directly on the cake using a disposable piping bag and a large star tip. You can also make a chocolate frosting for piping.
- To do that, melt the chocolate on a double boiler. Use a rubber spatula to add it to the reserved mascarpone frosting.
- If the resulting chocolate frosting is not thick enough for piping, place it in the fridge for 10-15 minutes.
- Pipe on top of the cake. Use an offset spatula with just a bit of chocolate frosting to make horizontal lines on the side where the cake is "halved".
- Let the cake stay in the fridge for 3-4 hours before serving it.
Notes
- Store the cake 2-3 days in the fridge covered with plastic wrap or portioned in airtight containers.
- If you want the cake to be pink or blue, you can colour the frosting with food dye. Add it to the mascarpone, before whipping it or just to the part that you would use for piping.
- This cake is relatively tall and is not very stable for transportation. If you want a smaller cake, bake it in one larger pan (e.g. 9 inch/ 23 cm) or use half of the ingredients and bake it in one 7 inch/ 18 cm pan. That way you will have 4 half layers.
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