It had been a while since I last made a cake, and that gave me all the inspiration I needed to get back in the kitchen. I decided to go with a honey cake. I already have two honey cake recipes on my site — Chocolate Honey Cake and Honey Cake. Both are absolutely wonderful! One has nearly 90 comments, the other has 520! Today's recipe is something I came up with based on one of them — the chocolate honey cake. I used the same dough but in smaller proportions to allow for more frosting, because I love a cake that's generous with the cream. I swapped the sour cream frosting for heavy cream and mascarpone. This frosting is incredibly delicious, but it doesn't deliver that distinctive tang you get from a sour cream frosting in a honey cake. With that in mind, I decided to add a small amount of sweet-tart berry jam to give the cake that flavor punch it needed. I used currant jam (made from frozen berries), but plum, cherry, or similar jams would work just as well. For the decoration, I used chocolate — it's incredibly simple to make but looks absolutely stunning. I'll say without false modesty: this honey cake turned out absolutely divine! Don't get me wrong, I love honey cakes with sour cream frosting, but a mascarpone cream takes it to a whole other level. It's an elegantly refined, restaurant-quality flavor — delicately smooth and creamy. Simply heavenly, I highly recommend it! My husband and daughter shared my enthusiasm completely. So delicious!
Ingredients:
- 180 g flour
- 80 g butter
- 80 g honey
- 50 g sugar
- 10 g cocoa
- 1 egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tsp baking soda
- pinch of salt
- Frosting:
- 500 g heavy cream 33%
- 250 g mascarpone
- 150 g sugar
- 10 g vanilla sugar
- Also:
- 80 g berry jam (I used black currant)
- shredded coconut for coating
- dark chocolate for decoration
How to cook chocolate honey cake with mascarpone
Make the dough. Place the honey, butter, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Melt everything together into a smooth, uniform mixture. I melted mine in the microwave — it's quick and easy.
Add the flour combined with cocoa and mix into a dough. Make sure to use a good-quality, deep dark cocoa. The dough will be warm and slightly sticky — that's perfectly normal. Don't add too much flour at once, or the layers will come out dense. Mix it together, see if you can work with it, and only then add a little more flour if needed, on the work surface as you go.
Divide all the dough into 5 balls — you'll get 5 layers, each 20 cm in diameter. I placed the dough on a sheet of parchment paper, covered it with another sheet, and rolled it out that way. It's fast and convenient, and no extra flour is needed. Feel free to roll the layers however works best for you. Cut out the layer shape. I used a pastry ring set to 20 cm in diameter. You can also use an upside-down plate as a guide and cut around it with a knife.
Prick the layer all over with a fork. Bake in an oven preheated to 200°C. Bake for 3–5 minutes (I baked mine for 5 minutes). Keep a close eye on them — the layers are thin and bake very quickly! Bake the remaining layers the same way. Let them cool. To keep the layers flat, don't stack them on top of each other until they have cooled completely.
Make the frosting. Beat the heavy cream with the sugar and vanilla sugar until quite thick and firm.
Add the mascarpone gradually, one spoonful at a time, continuing to beat as you go. Taste and sweeten further if needed.
Spread the jam out evenly, then top with one-fifth of the frosting. It's best to distribute the frosting across the entire surface right away, so that when you spread it, the jam stays in place.
Continue assembling the rest of the cake the same way. Do not spread jam on top of the final, top layer.
Prepare the decoration. Melt the chocolate — just 15–20 grams is plenty. Pour the melted chocolate in a thin layer onto a sheet of bubble wrap. Refrigerate or freeze until set. Then flip it chocolate-side down and very carefully and slowly peel away the bubble wrap. Break into pieces of the desired size.
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