ITALIAN MIMOSA CAKE - WOMEN'S DAY CAKE
Ingredients
Sponge Cakes
- 250 g (2 cups + 3 tbsp) sugar
- 7 eggs, medium-large size room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- Yellow food coloring in paste optional
- 250 g (2 cups + 2 tbsp) all purpose flour
- 4 g (1 tsp) baking powder
- Pinch of salt
Diplomat Cream
- 600 g (2+1/2 cup) milk
- 1 vanilla bean or 2 tsp vanilla paste/extract
- 200 g (1 cup) sugar
- 70 g (2/3 cup) cornstarch
- 7 egg yolks room temperature
- 7 g gelatine sheets or gelatine powder
- 180 g (3/4 cup) whipping cream chilled
Cake Soak
- 120 g (1/2 cup) water
- 35 g (3 tbsp) sugar
- 30 g (2 tbsp) Italian Maraschino liquor or your favorite cake liquor. For an alcohol-free version, substitute with 1 tsp vanilla paste/extract
Instructions
Sponge Cakes
- In a very large bowl place sugar, eggs, vanilla and mix with a hand or stand mixer until triple in volume, becomes thick and pale. You should reach the "ribbon stage", so be patient and mix, mix, mix!
- Incorporate the yellow food coloring in paste (optional).
- Sift in three times and gently fold using a spatula, the flour, baking powder and salt. Be gently to avoiding deflat the egg mix. Do NOT use mixer to incorporate the flour mix but a spatula.
- Equally divide the batter in two lined 20cm-8inch cake pan (aobut 450 g of batter for each pan) and bake in preheated oven (no fan, upper+lower heat) at 175°C-345°F for about 28 minutes. I baked two cakes together, if you bake one cake at a time they bake faster!
- Slightly cool down, then unmold the cakes and set aside to cool down completely.
Diplomat Cream
- Place a large bowl in freezer: you will need it later to quickly chill the cream.
- Place milk and a scored vanilla bean into a medium-large pan and bring to a slightly simmer.
- Meanwhile in a large bowl, mix together sugar and cornstarch. Then add the egg yolks and combine: you get a pretty thick batter. Set side.
- Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water for about 10 minutes and set aside.
- When the milk almost simmering and it's very hot, remove from the heat and add it in three times into the yolks thick batter mixing constantly.
- Strain the cream into the medium-large milk pan and cook over low-medium heat.At the beginning you should whisk often, but when it starts thickening you have to low the heat and whisk constantly and deeply at the bottom.Keep on cooking and mixing until simmering, then cook extra 2-3 minutes until becomes very thick: whisking hard and constantly.
- Remove from the heat and immediately add into the hot cream the soaked squeezed gelatine leaves. Mix until the gelatine completely dissolves.
- When the gelatine dissolved, pour the hot cream into the prepared ice cold bowl and mix to chill quickly. It should be shiny.
- Cover with plastic wrap in direct contact with the pastry cream and place in refrigerator to chill completely.
- In a large bowl place whipping cream and mix until soft peaks and shiny: do not overmix the whipping cream!
- When the pastry cream is chilled, remove it from refrigerator, whisk it to get a creamy consistency, then gently fold the whipped cream in three times into it.Cover with plastic wrap in direct contact with the diplomat cream and place in refrigerator until firm and you need it.
Cake Soak
- In a small saucepan place water and sugar, then bring to a boil over medium heat.
- Add the liquor and let it simmer for about 2 minutes, it should remain transparent.
- Remove from the heat and set aside to cool down completely.
Prepare the Sponge Cakes
- Remove the dark skin from both the sponge cakes: top, bottom and the sides.
- Slice one sponge cake in medium-thick slices, then divide every slice in three strips. Cube the strips. You should cut all the cake into medium-small cubes. Set the the cubes aside in a bowl.
- Cut three thin layer from the remaining sponge cake.
- Reduce the circumference of two of the sponge cake layers: you'll get three cake layers of different size in scale (about 19-17-15 cm).
Assembly
- Place the larger cake layer on the serving plate and soak it generously with the cake soak.
- Place a thick layer of Diplomat Cream on top.
- Place the medium-size cake layer on top and soak it generously with the cake soak.
- Place a thick layer of Diplomat Cream on top.
- Place the smaller cake layer on top and soak it generously with the cake soak: you should use all the cake soak.
- Place a thick layer of Diplomat Cream on top and completely coat the cake (sides too) with the Diplomat Cream. Be generous with the cream because the cake will be coated with the sponge cake cubes, so a large amount of Diplomat Cream is needful to not get a dry cake. Place some extra Diplomat Cream on top at the center of the cake to create a dome shape cake.
- Coat all the cake with the sponge cake cubes: pay attention to cover all the holes, you shouldn't see the Diplomat Cream below.
- Carefully cover the cake with plastic wrap, then place it in a cake stand with a lid and put in refrigerator for at least 3 hours, better overnight before serve it.
Video
Notes
Hello, I am Valentina! Welcome to How Tasty!
I am an Italian girl in love with baking and cooking. I’ve been raised in a cooking family, baking since I was a little girl and learning from my mom and my professional chef grandma.
I created the Youtube channel How Tasty in 2017 to share with you my passion.
You don’t need to be a professional cook to follow all my recipes thanks to the video tutorials and the tips & hints you can find here.
Let’s cook!
Tips:
Sponge cakes are very easy to make but it’s essential that you whip eggs and sugar with a hand or stand mixer: you have to incorporate a lot of air in the batter. The egg mix is ready only when it triples in volume, becomes pale and thick reaching the ribbon stage.
I decided to shape this cake like a dome to better looks like a mimosa flower, so I trimmed two of the cake layers to get 3 layers of slightly different size in scale.
This is optional, feel free to make a classic cake with the three layers of the same dimension.
The classic Italian Cake Soak is made with sugar syrup with a small addition of sweet liquor like Maraschino liquor, that is a very sweet pastry liquor made from a type of cherry.
If you can’t find Maraschino, you can use your favourite sweet cake liquor.
For an alcohol-free version just skip the liquor or substitute it with 1 tsp of vanilla extract.
I used gelatine in my Diplomt Cream to get a thicker texture. I suggest to not skip it or you can get a too runny Diplomat Cream.
Since this cake is made with a lot of sponge cake (it’s also coated with cubed sponge cake!) you should use a generous amount of Cake Soak and Diplomat Cream to get a moist and not dry cake, so use all the Diplomat Cream and Cake Soak without leftover!
Whem you remove Pastry Cream from refrigerator (just before adding whipped cream and turn it into a Diplomat Cream), it could be a bit jelly and very thick, mostly if you let it set in refrigerator for many hours or overnight.
It’s totally normal! In this case, before adding the whipped cream, mix it hard with a whisk until it gets a more creamy consistency and it will be easier to incorporate whipped cream in three times.
Since this cake is coated with sponge cubes, it’s very important that you well cover the leftover with plastic wrap before store it in refrigerator to avoid the cake becoming dry, mostly if you store it for few days.
EXTRA TIP FOR A MOIST MIMOSA CAKE: set aside 1 tbsp of Cake Soak and spray it or gently brush it over the sponge cubes on the cake to prevent from dryness.
