Triple Layer Chocolate Raspberry Rose Cake with Sweetened Cream

sometimes, you just have to splurge. a new baby, a promotion, first apartment...you know, something BIG! for me, it was my niece's 13th birthday which was a big deal because, 1) hello! it's 13 and 2) this was the first time she was at my house since i'd met my brother for the first time last summer. BIG! HUGE! also, it was mother's day so i wanted to make something special to honor all of the mom's who happened to be celebrating with us. enter this (not so) little lovely cake.

i had two inspirations going in. first, the look of this beauty from twig studios and the taste of this chocolate cake from my baking addiction, both of which i found on pinterest.

fit for a queen victoria sponge cake

 

the best chocolate cake

can you imagine the marriage? it's quite perfect, actually. and when they say "the best chocolate cake", they mean it! i've made this recipe twice now and it's divine. the recipe uses simple ingredients and is really straight forward. for this cake, i doubled it and used three 8-inch cake pans (be sure to butter and flour your pans and line the bottoms with buttered parchment).

3 cups of heavy cream whipped to a gorgeous cloud, sweetened with 1 cup of powdered sugar and flavored with a teaspoon of almond extract (vanilla is fine or none at all). actually, i would have loved to add some rose water to the cream too. yum! then just start layering: cake, raspberry jam, cream, fresh raspberries. rinse. repeat.

don't get caught up in having it look perfect. let the jam and the cream ooze and drip from between the layers. i did insert five wooden skewers to keep it stable and kept it in the fridge until about 15 minutes before we were ready to eat it. sooooo good! be sure to add candied rose petals to the top to make it extra special.

i know it might look complicated or like a lot of work but it really isn't. and who wouldn't love this cake? not only was it delicious, it was total eye candy as well! and if chocolate isn't your thing, you could make any cake flavor and still stack it up this way. lemon cake and blackberries with blackberry jam, vanilla cake with orange marmalade and mandarin oranges. get crazy and get baking!