Although the cake is clearly shaped as a heart, I called it number cake since this technique of layering biscuit with frosting is commonly used for birthdays and thus is often called the "number" cake. However, this version is a perfectly stunning yet simple to make Mother's or Valentine's day gift. But don't forget to prepare it one day ahead. The cake can be baked into any preferred shape and can also be used for numbers.
Special material requirements
Print-out of the heart stencil (see PDF below) or two big, differently sized heart-shaped cookie cutters
Scissors
2 perforated silicone mats (optional)
Piping bags
Round nozzle (e.g. 9mm)
Recipe
Yield: 8 portions | Difficulty: easy
Ingredients
Honey biscuit
200g flour
80g honey
45g butter
30g sugar
1 medium egg
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
Raspberry sauce
100g raspberry puree (10% sugar)
1/2 tbsp honey
1 1/2 tsp corn starch
1/4 tsp lemon juice
Mascarpone whipped cream
240g mascarpone (cold)
106g heavy cream (cold)
48g powdered sugar
24g honey
Decoration
150g Raspberries
Directions
Honey Biscuit
Place the honey, sugar and butter into a saucepan and heat it up on medium heat.
As soon as all the sugar has dissolved and it starts to boil, remove the saucepan from the heat.
Immediately add the baking soda and whisk. The honey will react with the soda and produce a foam which is what we want. If there is no reaction after adding the soda, you probably did not use proper honey.
After the foam has reduced a bit transfer the mix into a bowl and let it cool to room temperature.
Add the egg to the mix and whisk until it's well combined.
Before you add the flour, make sure the liquid is completely cooled down. Then add 2 tablespoons flour at the time to the liquid and mix in between.
For the last two tablespoons of flour you will need to kneed it into the dough by hand. After you have added all the flour the dough should be soft but not sticky.
Cover the dough in cling film and place it in the fridge for one hour.
In the mean time print out the heart stencil from the document below and cut out the heart.
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Roll out half of the dough just enough to cut out the heart shape.
Place the rolled out dough preferably on a perforated silicone mat placed on a perforated baking tray. If you don't have that, place the dough on a normal baking tray lined with baking paper.
Poke some holes into the dough with a fork. Optionally: if available cover with another perforated silicone mat.
Place in the middle of the oven and bake for approx. 8 minutes until golden brown.
Let it cool on the baking tray and set aside.
Repeat steps 11-15 until you have 3 heart shaped biscuits.
Raspberry sauce
Place the puree, honey and lemon juice in a saucepan and heat it up on medium heat.
Shortly before it starts boiling, add some puree to the cornstarch and whisk until there are no lumps.
Pour the cornstarch mix back to the puree in the saucepan and heat it up while constantly whisking until it starts boiling and thickens up.
Transfer the puree into a bowl and cover with cling film to touch.
After the sauce has cooled down to room temperature, transfer it into a piping bag and place it in the fridge until further use.
Mascarpone whipped cream
Place the whisking bowl in the fridge for half an hour to cool it down.
Add all ingredients to the bowl and whisk on medium speed until you have soft peaks. Try not to overmix it.
Transfer the cream into a piping bag with the round nozzle attached and place it in the fridge until further use.
Assembly
Pipe some mascarpone cream on the bottom of one cookie and stick it to the cake board.
Pipe dots around the border of the cookie and then fill the spaces in between.
Pipe some of the raspberry sauce on top. Make sure not to pipe too much so that it won't drip down. Leave some extra sauce for the decoration.
Place the next cookie on top and gently press it down a little bit.
Repeat step 2-4 for all cookie layers.
Decoration
Place the raspberries on top of the cake with holes looking up.
Fill the holes of the raspberries with raspberry sauce.
Place the cake in the fridge overnight and enjoy the next day. The biscuit needs time to soak up the moisture and become soft.
Notes
Honey biscuit: With this recipe you can also make 4 layers instead of only 3. Or you can use the rest of the dough to bake little honey cookies or make tiny cakes with the leftover cream and raspberry sauce. The cream and sauce would also be enough for 4 layers of biscuit. An additional layer of biscuit may increase the amount of servings.
Decoration: I would recommend buying a little more raspberries than needed for the decoration to choose from the prettiest ones for the cake.