A Glamorous Heart Cake

Whenever there is an upcoming marriage in the family, I make sure that I get my special moments with the bride or groom to be. I was brought up in the joint family. I have no sibblings but have 4 cousin sisters and 2 cousin brothers, we grew up as a tight knit family. It does not stay that way though, so then you begin to carve out these moments with more effort to be treasured later. With all my cousin sisters I have tried to make those moments precious, they got married and absorbed into the vortex of life that followed. So before the last of my cousins gets married we spent this refreshing holiday together last September after celebrating his birthday in Blr last year.

Now I am back in Mumbai and so a special cake for everyone in the family. I asked Hrushi what he would like but he trusts my judgement more or the experiment more don't know, he left it to me. I knew I was going to make Mascarpone cheese for his birthday so did a advance test. The test was successful in My Kitchen Lab. Will soon share it here.

The Mascarpone cheese goes really beautifully with fresh fruits, it was a discussion and then Deeba's post that made me feel confident that this will be one Glamorous cake for a birthday. 

This is an elaborate recipe so I preferred making it over 3 days.

Day1: Made the Heart sponge cake

Day2: Made the Mascarpone cheese and left it to drain and firm up in the fridge.

Day3: Did the layering and left it to chill in the fridge. Added the ganache on top.

Day4: At midnight the cake was cut. The flavors were soaked well. The Fruits still crunchy. Happy appreciative smiles and many drools.

Ingredients

For the Heart sponge cake

1.5 cups All Purpose Flour / Maida

2 tsp Baking powder

1 cup Curd

3/4 cup Sugar

1/4 cup oil

1/4 cup condensed milk

1 tsp Raspberry essence

1 tablespoon flax seeds powder + 3tablespoons water; rested for 10 mins.

Measure out the flour and along with the baking powder sieve it. Keep aside.

In a mixing bowl, add curd, condensed milk, oil, raspberry essence and sugar and beat until fluffy.

Add the flax seeds powder sludge which would have become albuminous to the wet ingredients. Mix well.

Now add little by little the flour and baking powder mix. Fold in the flour to get a batter that falls in layers when poured.

Preheat oven for 10 mins at 180 deg celcius.

Prepare heart shaped tin by greasing and dusting with flour.

Pour the batter into the tin. Tap the tin gently on the counter to remove the air bubbles and evenly spread the cake batter.

Bake in preheated oven for 40 mins or till top is golden and knife inserted in it comes out clean.

Let it cool in the tin for 30 mins and then demould onto a plate. I left the cake covered on the counter for an entire day. If you are doing the entire cake in a single day ensure it cools completely before you do the layers.

This cake is slightly dense and works well with the wet layers. It provides the required support and

absorbs the liquids released by the filling.

For the layered filling

1/2 cup Orange Marmalade 

2 cups Homemade Mascarpone cheese

1/2 cup icing sugar
1 teaspoon Raspberry essence

Mixed cut fruits

(I used 2 ripe pears + 1 apple with skin + 2 Nagpur oranges peeled + 1 cup Pomegranate arils, choose a colorful combination of fruits.)

After the cake is cooled completely, start the layering. Slice the cake horizontally.

Put the slice into the cake tin. First spread the Orange marmalade, level it out evenly.

Chill a splash proof bowl in the freezer. Next in the splash proof bowl put the mascarpone cheese, raspberry essence and add little icing sugar at a time and keep beating with a wooden spatula till all icing sugar is incorporated and you get stiff creamed mascarpone.

At this point add the mixed cut fruits to the creamed mascarpone cheese. Mix gently.

Fill  in all the mix into the tin. Place the top slice of the sponge cake over it. Press a bit to make it stick to the filling. Cover the tin with cling film and keep in the fridge to chill.

For the Ganache

1 slab of Bournville Dark chocolate (I used Hazelnut)

50 ml fresh cream

Just before serving, make the ganache. Remove the set layered cake onto a serving dish. You can just turn it upside down on any plate for support and place the Final serving plate face side down on it. Turn it upright again. Remove the support plate. Leave it to stand upright for further decoration.

In a bowl break the bar of  chocolate into pieces. Place the cream in a clean bowl and heat till it starts boiling, keep stirring so it does not spill over. Pour the boiling cream over the chocolate pieces. Beat it to dissolve the chocolate and fluff up a bit.

Pour the ganache from the center and move outward. Spread it with a butter knife. With a clean finger draw the swirl at the center to give it a effect of a rose bud.