Spumoni Cake
I’m baaaaaaack!
And I’m back with a bang! I totally missed you guys, but I enjoyed my vacation, and now I’m all rested up and refreshed from a very much needed break. I decided that my return should be impressive, so here we are with a Spumoni Cake.
This cake, y’all – I can’t even!
It’s no secret that I love all things spumoni. I’ve made No-Churn Spumoni Ice Cream and Spumoni Cheesecake, but I’ve never made anything like this Spumoni Cake before.
This all started because of my recent St. Patrick’s Day birthday and the party we had to celebrate all things me! A couple of years ago, we went to a local restaurant for my birthday (that’s now closed, so sorry to see you go Villa Antonio) and they gave me the most delicious spumoni cake for dessert.
Actually, I went to powder my nose and while I was gone Chris told our server that it was my birthday, which he is never allowed to do because I do not want the entire restaurant singing to me. #soembarrassing
Given that this was St. Patrick’s Day and the rest of Charlotte was doing the pub crawl, there wasn’t much risk of being humiliated because we pretty much had this Italian restaurant to ourselves.
The server asked Chris what kind of birthday dessert I would like and he just said that I like spumoni. Then like magic a slice of spumoni cake appeared with a simple happy birthday from our kind server.
Chris, of course, got the stink eye, but I couldn’t stay mad after he brought spumoni cake into my life.
So when we started planning my birthday party this year I tried to find that dang cake on the interwebs. Google couldn’t find that specific cake from the now defunct Villa Antonio, but it brought magic back into my life when it led me here and showed my the most beautiful cake I’ve ever seen in my life.
I totally had to have it for my birthday cake! I actually made the cake 3 times because I’m not much of a cake baker or decorator, so I needed a trial run to see if I could pull it off. The first time I made it exactly the way the recipe was written, but then Chris pointed out his surprise that I didn’t put any Southern Tier Creme Brulee Stout in it since I was putting it in everything else these days.
Zoink! Head smack! DO OVER!
The second time I swapped out the coffee from the original recipe with my favorite beer of the cold season and I made cream cheese frosting instead of the original buttercream.
I also swapped out the pudding mix for homemade pistachio pudding in the pistachio cake layer and the frosting. That is the reason for the different colors in the photos. The pudding mix makes a much brighter green color in the cake and the frosting.
I ended up serving two spumoni cakes at my party because why not?
One had all three colors of frosting and the other I just covered in chocolate buttercream flowers. Sadly, I was running behind on party day and I forgot to take a picture of that one. Just imagine this cake, but all chocolate. They were both a hit with my friends and family!
I knew I needed this Spumoni Cake in my life the minute Google uncovered this wonder to me. And I can tell you that it was just magical to see all my party guests’ faces light up when we walked in with these gorgeous cakes for dessert!
I’ll be the first to admit that my cake decorating skills are pretty much non-existent, but I do have to say I’m pretty proud of this cake and it’s not bad for a beginner!
[amd-zlrecipe-recipe:158]
Spumoni Cake inspired by and adapted from I am Baker
Chocolate layer adapted slightly from I am Baker
Pistachio and Cherry layers process adapted from I am Baker and cake base adapted from Martha
Homemade Pistachio Pudding Recipe here
NOTES:
- The original recipe uses packaged pudding mix which is how I made it the first time and has the brighter green color in the photos of both the frosting and the cake. The second and third times I used homemade pudding in the cake and the frosting. The photos of the steps (including the photo of the inside) are with the pudding mix and the finished cake with the lighter colored pistachio frosting are with the homemade pudding.
- This cake is kind of a project, so I made the cakes, wrapped them tightly in layers of plastic wrap and heavy duty foil and froze them until the day before I was going to serve the cake. The day before I just removed them from the freezer and left them on the counter overnight. Then made the frosting and assembled and finished it.
- You will have an extra layer of the chocolate cake that you can either double the chocolate frosting and add a fourth layer or keep it in the freezer for another day.
- You can watch a video here for instructions of how to make cake roses.
