Berries as Black as My Heart

I realize that most normal people celebrate Valentine's Day, but I have never been on board. I'm a "Day-After Valentine's Day Chocolate Sales" celebrator. So don't take what looks like a romantic, berry-laden cake as a sign I'm jumping on the Valentine's Day bandwagon. After all, I made this cake with berries that are as black as my heart.

No matter how romantic it looks, I swear the timing was purely coincidental.

So, this is actually the third time I tried making this blackberry cake with whipped mascarpone frosting and chocolate bowl topper. I've gone gluten free, so I was trying to make this fit my diet. Gluten-Free Attempt #1 wouldn't fully bake in the middle no matter how long it was in the oven. Gluten-Free Attempt #2 baked but tasted like it was made solely of chalk. Attempt #3 said, "You know what, the digestive distress is worth it for cake," and not a single attempt at removing gluten was made. Every single bite is absolutely amazing. It's got a sweet, slightly tart flavor thanks to a combination of fresh blackberry puree and blackberry preserves, and it is an incredibly light cake. As someone who had never really had mascarpone cheese before (tiramisu is an insult to all desserts), I can say with certainty I've pinned at least 50 new recipes. Why did no one tell me how amazing this stuff is? I just want to live in a tub of it. It's also not as calorie heavy as you'd think, and because of that, you can eat a slice of this cake for only 275 calories (10 slices total). No box of Valentine's Day chocolates can say the same thing.

Don't worry, there is chocolate involved though. Just later.

The hardest part of making and decorating this entire cake is making the blackberry puree, so it's *literally* a piece of cake to create. You only need:

• 1 box of Pillsbury sugar free yellow cake mix
• 3 eggs
• 1/3 cup of unsweetened applesauce
• 1 cup of skim milk
• 4 ounces of fresh blackberries, pureed and sieved
• 2 ounces of blackberry preserves
• Optional: purple gel dye

Start by preheating your oven to 325. Using a blender or a food processor, puree the blackberries until liquid. Strain the puree over a bowl with a mesh sieve and discard the seeds. Add the blackberry puree and all the other ingredients into a stand mixer bowl. Blend on low for a few seconds then switch over to medium-high for 2 minutes. I added a few drops of purple gel dye since I wanted to make this a naked cake with a vibrant hue, but without the dye, it's a nice lavender shade.

Prepare 3 six-inch round baking pans with cooking spray and bake even strips. Bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out of the cake completely clean. Set on cooling racks while still in the pans for 10 minutes before turning out on the cooling racks. Level your cakes with a leveler while they're still somewhat warm, but don't frost until they are completely cool to the touch. I throw my cakes in the freezer for a half hour to speed this up.

Mascarpone, you complete me.

 I adapted my whipped cream cheese frosting from last month to try out mascarpone, and I am absolutely thrilled, perhaps for the first time ever, that I branched outside of my comfort zone. It's sinchy recipe, and you only need:

• 4 ounces mascarpone cheese at room temp
• 1/2 cup of Lankato sugar free powdered monkfruit sweetener (or Swerve confectioners)
• 1 tsp of vanilla 
• 1 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream COLD
• Extra blackberries for layering and adding to the chocolate bowl (I used 8 ounces)

Whip the mascarpone for a minute or two in your stand mixer before adding the vanilla and the powdered sweetener. I switched over to the Lankato because it doesn't have as much of a cooling effect aftertaste that Swerve does. I got it from Amazon, and I highly recommend it for sugar-free frostings. With the mixer on low, take the cold heavy whipping cream and add very slowly to the bowl. Once it is completely added and mixed in, switch to a whisk attachment and beat on high for 2-3 minutes, until stiff peaks form. Stop mixing the second those peaks form so the frosting doesn't deflate. Place your bowl of frosting into the fridge until the moment you're ready to frost.

Purple is just the best color.

 I wanted a fun, cute chocolate topper for this cake. I tried a few variations with balloons that failed spectacularly, so I ended up covering a small bowl with wax paper, melting a third of a bag of lavender chocolate melts, and placed them into a piping bag.

As an added bonus, you can squeeze any leftover chocolate straight into your mouth from the piping bag!

 Then I just swirled squiggles and lines all over the wax paper to make a whimsical bowl:

Or something like that.

I'm not 100% thrilled with the result since I had something completely different pictured in my head, but it worked for it's given purpose: to hold fruit and chocolate. I placed this in the freezer to harden while I assembled my cakes.

Publix has literally the best blackberries.

 Take a cake layer, flop it upside down on a cake board, and then slather a decent helping of the whipped mascarpone frosting on top. Add a large handful of berries to this. Go heavy on the berries--since this is a whipped frosting, it doesn't provide much structure between layers. The berries help support each cake layer. Repeat for the second layer, and finish the top layer with a thick layer of frosting on top. I used about 3/4 of my frosting. If you don't want a naked cake, there's definitely enough frosting to completely cover the cake. But I'm using my leftover frosting each morning at breakfast with berries or in yogurt because it's flippin' fantastic.

Not enough purple!

 So this is what it looks like before scraping a bunch of frosting off. I love the blackberries poking out, and I wish I had put more closer to the edges to peak out and add a little more purple color to the cake. I took a large angled spatula and swiped off a bunch of excess frosting until you could clearly see all three purple layers:

Because it's the best color--and it's not a Valentine's Day color, so there's that.

 Now, take that chocolate bowl out of the freezer and carefully remove the bowl from the middle. Then very gingerly remove the wax paper from the chocolate. You'll be left with a device to hold more chocolate, and that's about as romantic as it gets in my book.

Hey there, good lookin.

 Now, add more blackberries, white chocolate chips, fancy chocolates, strawberries, whatever you want to this cute little bowl.

Think of it like sprinkles, but better, because...chocolate.

 You don't want to make it too heavy since that whipped frosting doesn't hold up very strongly. I recommend placing some wooden dowels in the cake to help support the weight of the bowl, or remove it until you're ready to put the cake out for the "ooh and ahh" moment before serving immediately.

It really is a showstopper.

 I am so glad the third time was the charm with this cake. It is everything I was hoping it would be in the flavor department. I feel like blackberries always get pushed aside for blueberries or strawberries, but to me, they're the best berry. Not too sweet, not too tart, just right--the Goldilocks of berries, really. This cake gives them an excellent opportunity to shine, and it's so delish that just thinking about it makes me happy. That light sweetness from the mascarpone whipped frosting is the perfect addition to this cake, and yeah, it definitely looks like something you'd want to serve for a romantic date night, I'll give it that. But since this is the kind of yummy cake you'd want to eat multiple fist or shovelfuls at a time, it kind of ruins that moment, so eater beware...you also won't feel much like sharing a slice after you've had a bite either, so things could go from blissful romance to Thunderdome really fast. I pray you come out victorious, because this cake is definitely worth it. 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

The truest love known to man...a really great cake.