Italian Lemon Olive Oil Cake Recipe with Berries & Mascarpone
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The best Italian Lemon Olive Oil Cake of your dreams, dressed with creamy layers of whipped mascarpone cheese, lemon curd, a lemon blueberry sauce and sprinkled with fresh blackberries. A Tiramisu like berry mascarpone cake but without coffee, simply Amazing!
Berry Mascarpone Italian Lemon Olive Oil Cake
I present to you the first official cake recipe on CiaoFlorentina blog and the only cake recipe you need. It now goes by Florentina’s Cake and I’m so excited about this one which is big, because yours truly excited about cake just doesn’t happen.
Melt in your mouth layer cake, lemony and berrylicious, soft and rich with a custardy pudding like lemon curd layer.
Fuhgeddaboutit!
This Italian lemon berry mascarpone cake is also the most and greatest cake recipe ever stollen on the internet, and to that all I have to say is: I am flattered little ones!
It’s the perfect cake all year round, from summer garden parties to birthdays to the holiday table like Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter. If you aren’t in the mood for creamy lemony luscious layers and summer berries you can just bake the cake and enjoy with a sprinkling of powdered sugar.
Mascarpone Cake
Lemon Olive Oil Cake Ingredients
- Blueberry sauce – because lemon pairs amazingly with blueberries and blackberries I just had to make a quick stove top blueberry sauce that will ad tons of flavor and extra moisture.
- Mascarpone filling – basically I’m following the same principle for making authentic Tiramisu, whipped mascarpone cheese with sugar and egg yolks in which I fold stiff whipped cream. Out of this world!
- Lemon Curd – this homemade lemon custard is where the cake gets its bright and fresh lemon flavor. No extract, no limoncello, just pure zesty lemon.
- Olive oil – I prefer using a fruity cold pressed extra virgin olive oil for this but for a more neutral flavor use an extra light olive oil. In any case you won’t really be able to tell if the cake was made with butter or oil. You can’t really taste the olive oil itself, just a lovely aroma.
- Blackberries – fresh juicy blackberries are the perfect contrast to the cooked blueberry sauce and make a beautiful garnish as well.
Now close your eyes for a second and imagine taking a bite out of fluffy layers of  olive oil cake loaded with mascarpone, lemon curd and blueberry sauce. Then sprinkle blackberries all over the place, pretending you are the foodie Picasso or something.
Tell the truth! Can you even handle those luscious creamy layers?!
Italian Lemon Mascarpone Cake
It might seem like a very self involved recipe at first look, but it is really easy actually. There are a few simple steps you can do a day ahead:
- make the lemon curd.
- prepare the blueberry sauce.
- whip the mascarpone filling.
- bake your cake, cool it off then dress it nicely with all the goodies you prepared. EASY!
Garnishes – my lemon thyme was blooming so i just had to use the thyme blossoms for garnish; you can use pretty rosemary and even lavender flowers.
Storage – this cake must be refrigerated, ideally in a cake storage box if you have one. It taste better the second and third day so you can make it in advance.
Mascarpone Lemon Olive Oil Cake Variations
- Berries – replace the blueberries + blackberries with fresh strawberries, raspberries or cherries.
- Glaze – cover with this blueberry glaze.
- Figs – use these balsamic figs as a sauce and decorate with fresh figs.
- Chocolate variation – make a chocolate glaze / frosting and sprinkle with coconut.
- Orange – garnish with candied oranges and rosemary blossoms.
- UPDATE 2019: you can now make this cake 100% Vegan, snatch the recipe from the VeggieSociety blog.
Italian Desserts
- Lemon ricotta cookies
- Blueberry ricotta muffins
- Cranberry bread
- Lemon blueberry bread
- Lemon muffins
- Sicilian ricotta cheesecake.
- Ricciarelli Almond Cookies.
Italian Lemon Olive Oil Cake Recipe with Berries + Mascarpone
Ingredients
- 1 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1/3 cup ricotta cheese
- 2 cup all purpose flour
- 5 eggs organic pasture raised
- 1.25 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- Zest from 1 lemon
- A pinch of sea salt
- 1 lb blackberries
- 1/4 cup edible flower blossoms
Blueberry Sauce
- 1/2 lb blueberries
- 1/2 lemon juiced
- 2-3 tbsp wild honey
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Mascarpone Cream
- 4 large egg yolks organic pasture raised
- 4 tbsp granulated sugar
- 3/4 lb mascarpone cheese
- 1.5 cup whipped cream ( Stiff )
- zest from 1 lemon
Lemon curd
- 1/2 cup lemon juice freshly squeezed
- Zest from 1 lemon
- 5 large egg yolks organic pasture raised
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 5 tbsp butter cut into 5 pieces.
Instructions
Make the Blueberry Sauce:
- Start by adding the blueberries with the lemon juice, vanilla and honey to a small sauce pan. Bring to a simmer and cook for a couple of minutes, just until the blueberries burst. Remove from flame and adjust sweetness to your taste with more honey. Refrigerate until ready to use.
Make the Lemon Curd:
- To make the lemon curd, prepare a double boiler with 2 inches of water in the bottom pan. Bring to gentle simmer.
Add the egg yolks, sugar, lemon zest and lemon juice to the top pan. Whisk together over the steam until combined well. Keep whisking for a few minutes until the curd has thickened and coats the back of a spoon. About 5 to 10 minutes or so. Turn off the flame and whisk in the butter until melted. Transfer the curd to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate until cooled completely. It should be very thick at this point. - Preheat your oven to 325"F.
- Prepare a 10 inch spring form pan by lightly buttering it with a dab of butter. Place on a baking sheet.
Make the Olive Oil Cake:
- In the bowl of a mixer add the eggs, lemon zest and sugar and using the whisk attachment beat them together until well combined. A few minutes.
- Pour in the olive oil and continue whisking on medium low speed until all incorporated. Add the ricotta cheese and sea salt and whisk till combined.
- Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and slowly mix or fold everything together until incorporated.
- Transfer the cake batter into the buttered spring form pan.
- Bake the olive oil cake in the preheated oven for about 45 minutes to 1 hour, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out almost clean.
- Transfer the cake to a cooling rack and allow to cool completely.
Make the Mascarpone Cheese Filling:
- Add the egg yolks and sugar to a large mixing bowl. Use a mixer with a whisk attachment to cream the sugars and egg yolks until fluffy and pale in color.
- Add the lemon zest and spoonfuls of the mascarpone cheese until incorporated.
- Using a spatula fold the whipped cream (must be stiff) into the whipped mascarpone cheese until combined. Make sure to not over mix. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use. It should not be runny, it should be thick and creamy.
Assemble the Cake:
- Once cooled off, remove the cake from the spring form pan by releasing the sides first, then remove the bottom.
- Very carefully slice a thin layer off of the top to remove the top crust and expose the inside of the cake.
- Extra carefully slice the cake in half using a serrated knife.
- Place the bottom part on a plate or cake stand.
- Using a small spatula spread the chilled lemon curd on top of the olive oil cake. Spoon half of the mascarpone filling on top, or as much as you feel comfortable working with. If it seems like too much for you, simply save some for later use. Then top it with half of the blueberries from the blueberry sauce and some of the fresh blackberries. Reserve as much of the liquid from the blueberry sauce as possible for the next layer.
- Add the next olive oil cake layer and spoon all the remaining blueberries with the sauce on top. Add the remaining whipped mascarpone (or however much you feel comfortable working with) and with the back of a spoon or spatula rustically spread it over the top. Place the fresh blackberries all over the top, reserving some to decorate the sides of your olive oil cake.
- Garnish your lemon olive oil cake with edible flower blossoms and enjoy chilled.
Notes
- Make sure the whipped cream is Stiff not runny.
- If whipping your own cream, start with 1 cup of organic heavy whipping cream + 1 tbsp sugar. Whip with the whisk attachment until stiff, it should yield just about 2 cups of whipped cream.
Nutrition
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Your recipe says 1 pound blueberries but you’re only using half a pound of blueberries in the sauce where did the other half a pound go?! Thanks
Hi Diana, the recipe calls for 1 pound of Blackberries to garnish the cake but only 1/2 pound of blueberries in the sauce. Hope that helps ~ Florentina
How long will the cake last in the fridge and still look good? I gues I’m asking if I can make it a day ahead.
Yes this is best made a day and even two ahead, the filling needs to set anyway.
Can you use raspberries instead of blackberries?
Sure! Raspberries are nice!
Hi Florentina! I have a question, when making the mascarpone cheese filling the whipped cream has to be cold? Thanks 🙂
That is correct, must be cold! Enjoy Marcela!
I remember I made this a few years ago for my dad’s birthday. I always to challenge my baking around birthdays because I try extra hard. I couldn’t wrap my head around olive oil in a cake when I first came around this recipe but it was FANTASTIC! So moist and the most perfect balance with fresh, sweet blackberries and lemon curd. Loved it! I’m trying to find a coconut olive oil cake and decided to find this recipe again so I could possibly adjust the ingredients to fit the coconut somewhere. Again, LOVED THIS CAKE.
This is so beautiful and delicious sounding! I’d like to make this for my hubby’s bday i pop arty, for around 50 people, you ever try to make individual cups, like trifle style?
Yes individual cups fork great for parties, the slices could get messy so serving like a trifle is brilliant. You would need 2 cakes for 50 people however 🙂
I made this cake! It was delicious. The texture is very different. It’s not cakey, it’s almost like a biscuit/cake/scone had a cake.. and bam! That’s what this is. It would make the perfect strawberry shortcake. The combination of everything made this cake amazing! I for sure didn’t whip the whip cream long enough, so my cake was a little runny! But, it still tasted delicious! Thank you!
is it possible to make this cake with gluten free flour 1 to 1 ratio flour?
I’m thinking bob’s red mill.
sorry Jenn, I have not made this glute-free so I would not want to suggest something that I’m not sure will work. Let me know if you do try it ~ Florentina Xo’s
I made this cake 02/02/2022 and it is amazing! The lemon flavor is DELIGHTFUL!
I’d love to make this cake for my birthday but I’m leaving town the next day, and I know I’ll have at least half a cake left over. How do you think this cake would fare in the freezer? I don’t care about looks, it’ll just be me eating it for the next week 🙂
Or how long do you think this cake would last in the fridge?
Thanks!
It should be just fine to freeze it but might get a little messy when defrosted.
SUPERB! This cake is perfection, it’s really easy if you make your fillings the day before as suggested in the recipe. Not only is it obviously gorgeous but it tastes heavenly as well. You won’t regret making this for the most special occasions. WOW
How thick is the blueberry sauce? Is it jam consistency or looser like a syrup? I happen to have a lemon blueberry jam and am wondering if that can be used instead.
Hi Ayesha, the blueberry sauce is more like a rustic syrup with burst blueberries but still syrupy. If you have a jam you love i suggest thinning it out just a bit with some lemon juice. It won’t be quite the same but it can work. ~ Florentina
This cake is so beautiful! I’m going to make it for Mother’s Day. What size spring form pan should I use? So excited about this cake it looks so yummy!
Hi Lisa, I used a 9 inch springform pan for this.
Hi Florentina, I think the recipe says to use a 10 inch springform pan. But here you say you used a 9 inch. Which size should I use? So excited to make this!
Alyssa, I believe I actually used both at some point but just measured the latest one I used and it is a 9 inch. Either size will work great ~ Florentina Xo’s
I really enjoyed this recipe – the cake cake out beautifully and my very picky husband LOVED it. I agree. As the person following the published recipe, I have a few constructive comments.
1. The recipes and ingredients do not flow in the same order. It’s amazing and incredibly helpful that the recipe is segmented into discrete steps of what and how to make. However if you follow the recipe steps, the ingredients list isn’t broken sequentially to follow the instructions. I was constantly scrolling back and forth, regular page refreshes. Leading to……
2. The website is really creaky and outdated. It refreshes constantly to the top of the (long) page before the recipe without any shortcut to jump to recipe.
3. The recipe measurements alternate weight vs volume. 2 cups vs 3/4 lb. It should be majority one or the other, and at least consistent for large volume.
I think recipe substance is good. Just some UE issues that are easily overcome so that the recipes shine through.
I say this having made the cake beautifully. I was just irritated by technically issues throughout.
This cake was an absolute hit. Your recipes are amazing and I LOVE watching your videos. What you do is inspiring, and makes me want to cook more, bringing me back to my rustic Italian roots. For mothers day this year, I made this olive oil cake, and also the pull apart rustic cheese bread with fontina. let me just say WOW !! with 2 recipes down and many more to go, I am looking forward to cooking Florentina style. Thank you all the way from Staten Island NY !!
Love this cake! Was wondering if you might have an eggless version?
I am working on my Vegan version right now, got the lemon curd down and will post on VeggieSociety.com asap!
WOW. This was sooo good. Now, my cake did not look nearly as pretty as yours did (though I also did not have any edible flowers to help me out), but it was my first layer cake ever. The mascarpone cream was pretty runny with mine, but I will say that I actually didn’t have enough mascarpone– it looked fairly thick in the bowl and tasted good, so I went with it. It definitely wasn’t as structurally sound as I would’ve liked, but didn’t completely run off the cake. Either way it tasted amazing and everyone really liked it!
There is a man using the name Michael Meers on Facebook who is posting your recipes as his own. I’ve brought it to the attention of admins in the groups where I see it (he even has his own group, using your pictures and recipes, as well as those of other bloggers and sites), but he is tenacious. Good luck.
Thank you so much for letting me know!
This is a phenomenal recipe with some caveats. First, the cake is insanely good. You could just make that and eat it alone. Right out of the oven. I accidentally used a 9″ pan and used convection, so had to adjust the schedule a bit as the surface cooked faster than the middle. I just reduced the heat to 300 and monitored the center, as guided, to take it out while the cake was still slightly moist on the tester. My mom made the cake later and had a more dry crumb which was less wonderful. Do take it out while moist.
The only issue we both had with this recipe is that the filling was more of a zabaglione than a custard. Just too runny to look good on a standalone cake. You could serve it in a trifle bowl and not change a thing. However, I’m making it again today with some modifications to ensure a slightly more firm texture – checked recipes for tiramisu, for mascarpone custard, and mascarpone mousse. Some combo of those should help.
Lastly, we have some great markets here so I cheated and bought some fabulous premade curd. While it’s not difficult to make, if you have it premade and good quality, it’s a nice time saver.
Definitely worth making.
PS: I used chocolate mint leaves (softer flavor than spearmint) rather than flowers, as I didn’t have any of those.
For the blueberry sauce… when it says 1/2 lemon juiced… does that mean the juice from half a lemon or 1/2 cup of lemon juice?
the juice from 1/2 lemon 🙂