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Why You’ll Love My Recipe
Do you love the coffee and cream flavours of a classic tiramisu? Try this leveled-up tiramisu in cake form! You’ll love all how all of these fairly simple ingredients work together to form a luxurious and decadent dessert.
Don’t forget to learn How To Make A Perfect Whipped Cream for your tiramisu cake! And why not try pairing this scrumptious cake with an equally lovely Espresso Martini or Amarula Espresso Martini?
Reader Review
This cake is the best Tiramisu I’ve ever eaten!! My new favorite!!❤️❤️❤️
Karlynn’s Recipe Notes
Skill Level: Medium
Total Time: The baking time for this cake is under 30 minutes, but assembly and cooling times will add at least 2 hours.
Variations: Try using shavings of white or blonde chocolate and some lemon or strawberry whipped cream. Use dark, milk, or semisweet chocolate. Use a yellow cake mix or your own favourite cake recipe. Add a kick of cinnamon to the whipped cream, some almond or pistachio extract to the cake batter, maybe some chopped nuts sprinkled on top of the cake. So many options here!
Tools Needed: Three 9-inch round cake pans, a stand mixer or hand mixer and large bowl, a vegetable peeler, cooling racks, a piping bag (or plastic bag with a corner cut off), a pastry brush, a small sieve, and a spatula.
What You’ll Need For Ingredients
Mascarpone Cheese: Make sure to get the full-fat kind.
Whipping Cream: You could also use premade whipped topping, but fresh whipping cream is best for this one.
Cake: A boxed white cake mix or your favourite homemade white cake will be fine.
Confectioners Sugar: Also known as icing sugar or powdered sugar.
Coffee: Some powdered instant coffee and some espresso or strongly brewed coffee.
Chocolate: Dark or milk chocolate are the most common, but you could try semisweet or white or any chocolate you love.
How To Make Tiramisu Cake
This is a quick overview of the recipe. The recipe card below contains the full list of ingredients and step-by-step instructions.
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour the cake pans. Mix cake batter.
- Divide 2/3 of the batter between 2 of the three pans. Dissolve the instant coffee in 1 tablespoon of water. Mix with the remaining batter. Pour batter into remaining pan.
- Bake cakes for 23 to 28 minutes, until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes, then transfer cakes to wire racks to finish cooling.
- Mix the mascarpone icing ingredients in a bowl. Refrigerate until the cakes are cooled enough to frost.
- Place your first white cake on a plate or cake stand. Brush it with some espresso (or strong coffee)—Spread 1/3 of the icing onto the cake. Add the dark cake, brush with coffee, and spread with icing. Add your last cake and brush it with the last of the coffee.
- Gently frost the sides and top of the cake with the remaining icing. Chill the cake for two hours.
- Decorate the cake with whipped cream, a dusting of cocoa powder, and chocolate shavings. Serve.
Karlynn’s Tips and Tricks for Making Tiramisu Cake
Make a Cake from Scratch: This recipe uses a cake mix to make things extra easy, but if you have a favourite white cake recipe, you could use that. Or try with a yellow/golden cake for a richer flavour.
Don’t Let The Cakes Stick: Don’t skip the greasing and flouring of the pans! Better yet, try lining the pans with parchment paper or using silicone cake pans instead. These days, cake pans with solid sides and silicone bottoms are even available.
Take Your Time: This is not a super quick recipe. To get the best flavours out of the cake and to make it easier to decorate and serve, you’ll need to chill it for a couple of hours. If you’d like to save some time, try baking the cakes the day before you need them so that they can be fully cooled.
Chill Out: Assembly will work best if all of the ingredients are cold, so try mixing up your icing, whipped cream, and even your coffee in advance and letting them sit in the fridge until you’re ready to assemble the cake.
Storage Instructions
Fridge: This cake is loaded with dairy products, so it definitely needs to be refrigerated. If you have a cake case or tray with a cover, store your assembled cake in it for a few days in the fridge.
Freezer: You could try freezing individual slices, layered with pieces of parchment paper, in a sealed container, but the texture may be disappointing once defrosted.
More Delicious Dessert Recipes
Looking for more Dessert recipes?
Try this yummy Banana Split Cake.
Make these chocolate-covered strawberries to eat on their own or to put on top of something else as a decoration.
If you love creamy, decadent treats, try this Homemade Pistachio Pudding Cake or this Chocolate Delight Recipe.
There you go! Next time you’re craving the flavours of tiramisu but looking for something a little different, try this recipe. Customize it and let me know how it turns out for you.
Happy Baking!
Karlynn
Tiramisu Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 1 package moist white cake mix
- 1 cup water
- 3 large egg whites
- ⅓ cup vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon instant coffee powder
Coffee For Brushing
- ½ cup Espresso Coffee, (or strong brewed coffee)
Filling
- 4½ cups mascarpone cheese, (full fat)
- 2½ cups confectioners’ sugar, (measured sifted not packed)
- ½ cup espresso coffee, (or strong brewed coffee)
- 1½ cups whipping cream
Garnish
- 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder, (sifted for top of cake)
- whipped cream on top.
- 2 Tablespoons shaved chocolate curls, (on top)
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and flour three 9-inch round pans.
- In a mixing bowl beat your cake mix, water, egg whites, and oil in a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed until well combined, about 2 minutes.
- Divide 2/3 of the batter between 2 prepared pans.
- Stir 1 teaspoon instant coffee powder into one tablespoon of water dissolving the granules and add it to the last 1/3 remaining batter and mix until combined, pour that into the last remaining prepared pan.
- Bake cakes in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center of cakes comes out clean, 23 to 28 minutes.
- Cool cakes in the pans for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Filling and Frosting
- Make sure mascarpone cheese, coffee and cream are very cold.
- Beat mascarpone on medium speed for about 2 minutes until it is creamy. Add the confectioners' sugar, and espresso coffee and continue to beat on medium until combined and creamy. Stir in the whipping cream and mix it on medium speed for another 2-3 minutes until creamy. Place covered in the refrigerator to keep cool if the cakes are not ready yet.
Assembling the cake
- On a cake plate or cake stand place one layer of the white cake. Brush the cake with the espresso coffee using about 1/3 of the coffee.
- Then spread 1/3 of the mascarpone cream on top of that cake layer. Repeat this with one more layer using the dark cake. So the dark cake is in the middle layer of the cake.
- Place the last layer of white cake on top, using the last of the coffee brush the cake. Using the last 1/3 of mascarpone cream, lightly frost the outside and the sides of the cake.
- Chill cake in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours before serving to let the flavors incorporate well.
- Garnish your cake right before serving: Pipe whipped cream on top if desired. Place cocoa powder in a sieve and lightly dust the top of cake. Run a vegetable peeler down the edge of chocolate square to form curls. Scatter chocolate shavings over cake.
- Enjoy!
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Martina Murphy says
This cake is the best Tiramisu I’ve ever eaten!! My new favorite!!❤️❤️❤️