Light and fluffy sponge cake with delicious fresh summer berries and smooth mascarpone; the perfect cake for a summer afternoon.
My sister asked me if I could make a cake for a colleague’s birthday quite last minute. When people know you make cakes, they seem to sometimes think you do nothing else so their last minute cake request isn’t a problem. I do love baking and hate to turn people away, especially family, so I squeezed this in around the wedding taster cupcakes I was making.
My sister said she was ideally looking for a cake with fruit, so with that and knowing she doesn’t like cream or buttercream, I came up with this cake. I was very pleased with how the cake turned out and it went down extremely well and I even received my first thank you note which was incredibly kind.
I split the batter into three tins but you can always just use two if you’d prefer. You can also use vanilla extract if you don’t have vanilla bean paste but I really like the specks of black throughout the sponge because then you know vanilla is in the cake.
The lady that the cake was for wrote my a lovely card to say thank you for making her the cake which made my day!
For the cake
225g caster sugar
225g butter or margarine
4 eggs
225g self raising flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp vanilla bean paste
- Preheat the oven to 180°C and line 3 8inch sandwich tins
- Beat the sugar and butter together until pale and fluffy. Then add the eggs one at a time, mixing between each before adding the vanilla bean paste
- Add the flour and baking powder and mix until completely combined and then divide into the tins
- Put in the oven for 17-20 minutes until a cocktail stick comes out clean. Allow to cool for a few minutes in the tins before turning out and allowing to cool completely on a wire rack
For the filling
400g strawberries
300g raspberries
200g blueberries
200g mascarpone
200ml fromage frais
½ tsp vanilla bean paste
- Wash all of the fruit then hull and slice the strawberries
- Beat the mascaropone, fromage frais and vanilla until smooth and velvety
- Place one of the cake layers on your cake board or plate so that what was the top is now the bottom. Spoon a third of the mascarpone mix and spread out to cover the cake. Arrange a layer of the fruit and then repeat with the next two layers of cake
