Blueberry cake

For this birthday cake I wanted to avoid heavy buttercream. This mascarpone-based frosting tastes lighter, especially if the mascarpone is partially replaced by quark cheese, and allows the taste of fresh blueberries, blueberry jam and juice to really stand out.

Ingredients (for three-layers cake*)

• 6 eggs, room temperature
• 220 g caster sugar
• 180 g plain flour (polohrubá in Czech shops)

*Note: I wasn’t careful enough when mixing the flour into the dough (it accumulated all in one layer) and the result after I baked it was totally useless. I had to start all over again, but only had 4 eggs left. Thus, the cake you see on the pictures has only 2 layers.

Cream:

• 5 packs mascarpone (250 g each); if you prefer the cream to be a bit lighter, you can use 4 packs of mascarpone and 1 pack of light quark cheese.
• 4 tablespoons powder sugar
• a few drops of vanilla extract
• 1 pack whipping cream (200 g)
• blueberries to be put inside the cake layers
• blueberries to be put on the top of the cake

Blueberry juice (for blueberry cream frosting):

• 150 g blueberries
• 1 tablespoon caster sugar

and

• blueberry jam

Directions

Preheat oven to 170ºC (338ºF). Butter a cake form.

Make the cake

In a bowl, beat egg yolks and gradually add sugar. Using hand mixer beat for at least 10 minutes to achieve nice fluffiness of the cake.

Beat the egg whites until they are stiff. Carefully add the beaten egg whites to the bowl with the beaten egg yolks and carefully combine (fold using spatula).

Carefully fold in the flour using spatula. Be sure the flour is fully blended and did not just sink to the bottom of the bowl.

Pour the dough into the form and bake for about 30 minutes. Use a skewer to test if the cake is done.  If you insert it in the centre of the cake, it should come out clean (except for melted chocolate). If not, leave the cake in the oven for a few more minutes.

Once done, let the cake cool down completely first before starting with any decorating.

Make the blueberry juice

Put the 150 g of blueberries into a pan, together with the sugar, and boil for 5 minutes. You can add some water to prevent sticking to the pan. Then put the blueberries into blender / mixer and mix. Put the mixture back into the pan and boil again for a few minutes. At the end, press the blueberry mixture through a fine sieve to get a pure juice.

Make the cream

In a bowl, mix mascarpone (and quark if you have it) with sugar and vanilla extract. In another bowl whip the cream until stiff and mix it into the mascarpone.

Assemble and decorate the cake

Trim the top of the cake, if needed. Slice the cake into ideally three layers, using a large cake knife.

Place the first layer on a serving plate. Spread blueberry jam on it. Spread some of the cream on the jam, layer blueberries on the top of the cream and again, spread some of the cream on the top of the blueberry layer. Top with the 2nd cake layer and repeat. Top with the last cake layer.

Mix the rest of the cream with the blueberry juice to achieve nice purple color of the frosting.  Spread the purple frosting over the top and sides of the cake.

Decorate the top of the cake with the remaining blueberries.

Refrigerate before slicing.

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