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This is a mouthwatering classic Italian dessert, but in cake form. This Tiramisu Cake recipe involves layers of chocolate, coffee and vanilla sponge, sandwiched with a light, fluffy, cream cheese buttercream icing, and finished off with chocolate shavings. Dreams really do come true!
This divine Tiramisu Cake is perfect for pulling out all the stops baking. It’s impressive, it’s delicious and looks amazing too.
But baking a showstopper like this doesn’t have to be difficult, and this recipe will walk you through the process step by step, so you get it just right.
This is a perfect cake recipe to use if you want to make a unique celebration cake, but it’s also perfect for a ‘coffee and cake’ type event.
Why you’ll love this Tiramisu Cake recipe
⭐️ Light in texture but rich in flavour
⭐️ Totally impressive and delicious
⭐️ Not too tricky to perfect
How we came up with this recipe
Picture the scene… It’s 1996, I’m 15, wearing black lipstick, listening to The Cure and writing cringingly bad poetry. I have a secret. A big secret.
The truth is, I love cooking. I mean, I love cooking. It’s way not cool to be a teenage goth that knows how to make a soufflé.
I had Mary Berry’s Complete Cookbook and I was not afraid to use it. I adored Mary before The Bake Off made her cool. I poured over that book for hours.
I dreamed of the creations in it, sophisticated duck á l’orange, fluorescent yellow mango cheesecake and fancy pants coronation chicken. (Surely they were a bit out of date even in the 1990s? I’m not that old, right?!)
One dish stood out even more than all the others. The dreamy, creamy, light tiramisu. It was the height of cosmopolitan cooking. European, with booze in too!
I loved making it. Seeing the eggs transform into this silky, cloud-like dessert never failed to secretly cheer me from my teenage angst. I made it at every opportunity.
I still love and use that same recipe for tiramisu now, 18 years later. It was only a matter of time before the flavours made it into a cake, so I give you… Tiramisu Cake!
Tiramisu Cake Ingredients
- Butter – Use unsalted
- Soft light brown sugar
- Caster sugar
- Eggs – I use medium free range
- Self-raising flour
- Cocoa
- Instant coffee granules
- Boiling water
For the icing:
- Unsalted butter
- Coffee-flavoured icing sugar – Or normal icing with instant coffee mixed in (see notes)
- Cream cheese – Use full fat
- Vanilla extract
To decorate:
- Dark chocolate
- Chocolate coffee beans – I use these ones
How to make Tiramisu Cake
- Grease your tins and preheat the oven.
- Cream the butter and sugars together until pale and light.
- Mix in the eggs one at a time, the the flour (by hand).
- Put half of the mixture into one of your tins.
- Mix the cocoa, coffee and water until dissolved.
- Stir into the remaining cake mixture, then put this into another tin.
- Smooth the batter in both, with a small dip in the middle.
- Bake for about 30-35 minutes.
- Make your icing.
- When the cakes are cold, level them with a carving knife and trim the top crust off. Split each cake in half horizontally so you now have 4 layers.
- Sandwich each layer with your buttercream, and a layer on top.
- Cover the sides with buttercream too, and roll in grated chocolate.
- Top the cake with more buttercream, pipe swirls and add chocolate and coffee beans.
Storing
In the fridge You can keep this recipe in the fridge for 3 days.
Top tips
Butter
Make sure your butter is at room temperature before you start to cream it.
Coffee flavoured icing
If you don’t have this, use normal icing sugar and 2 tbsp of instant coffee dissolved in 1 tbsp of boiling water.
FAQs
Yes! Check out my cake collection here. If you want something easy, try my Lemon Drizzle Cake!
Let me know how you got on and what you thought of these recipes. Please rate the recipe using the ⭐️ below.
Also I’d LOVE to see your cooking creations. If you’d like to share yours with me, you can tag me on Instagram (@tamingtwins).
Tiramisu Cake {Chocolate & Coffee Dessert}
Ingredients
- 350 g Unsalted butter
- 125 g Soft light brown sugar
- 225 g Caster sugar
- 6 Free range eggs
- 350 g Self-raising flour
- 2 tbsp Cocoa
- 2 tbsp Instant coffee granules
- 2 tbsp Boiling water
For the icing:
- 500 g Unsalted butter
- 500 g Coffee flavoured icing sugar, See notes
- 200 g Full fat cream cheese
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
To decorate:
- 100 g Dark chocolate, Grated
- About 20 Chocolate coffee beans
Instructions
- Grease 2 x 7″ round deep cake tins.
- Preheat the oven to 180C.
- Cream your room temperature butter with your brown sugar and caster sugar until it’s pale, light and fluffy.
- Mix in the eggs, one at a time, beating really well after each egg. (Don’t worry if it starts to look a bit curdled, it’ll all come good.)
- Mix in your flour. (If you’ve been using a mixer, do this bit by hand. It helps to keep the sponge light.)
- Pop one of your greased tins on the scales and weigh in 650g of the cake batter you have in your bowl (or just guess half).
- In a mug, mix together the cocoa, coffee and boiling water until dissolved.
- Stir this into the remaining half of the cake batter and put into the second prepared tin.
- Smooth out both tins of batter with the back of a spoon. Make a bit of a dip in the middle to account for rising.
- Bake for about 30-35 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. You might need to adjust the time by 5 minutes either way depending on your oven.
- Meanwhile make your icing. Beat your butter until it’s pale, light and fluffy.
- Beat in your icing sugar. Beat for about 10 minutes until light and pale.
- Beat in the cream cheese.
- When your cakes are completely cold, use a carving knife to level them. Trim the top crust off. This is important, it’s not a waste of cake (taste testing compulsory). If you don’t do this, with a cake this size it will be wonky.
- Then split each cake in half horizontally, so you’ll end up with 4 layers of cake.
- Sandwich each layer together (alternating the sponge types) with your buttercream, and a layer on top.
- Cover the sides of your cake with buttercream, then roll in the grated chocolate.
- Now cover the top of the cake with more buttercream, pipe swirls and add your chocolate coffee beans.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
This looks incredible! I am pinning it, sharing it and hopefully making it very soon!
Popping over from #recipeoftheweek
I love your description of yourself age 15 – could have been describing myself: black lipstick and stolen graph book from the school stationery cupboard full of bad poetry under the bed!
My strongest memory of a cookbook from childhood was the Brownies and Girl Guides cookbook, I think I made the melting moments from that about a hundred times. I didn’t discover Mary Berry until a few years later.
A-mazing!
Sarah this looks amazing!!
Thanks lovely! x
wow like seriously this csake has wow factor!!! it looks so amazing and i would love to try a slice please as i have a cup of tea here ready x x
Hi Sarah, that cake looks too good to eat, but I’m hoping my hubby will do just that when I make it for him this weekend (he doesn’t like cream much, so it’s tricky to get him to eat actual Tiramisu dessert)! Thanks for the recipe 🙂
The oldest cookbook that I still use is my school ‘Domestic Science’ book that we painstakingly copied the teacher’s typed-up recipes into about 30 years ago. It’s held together by an elastic band & has all sorts of bits of paper tucked inside, but it’s still my first choice for basics like scones & pastry!
Oh Jo, I love that you still use that book! I must dig out my granny’s recipes 🙂
Hi Sarah,
I made the cake last night for my friends at my Jamie at home party. Everyone who had a slice agreed it was delicious. Unfortunately, I have some frosting left over, so I’m going to use the chocolate sponge to make a traybake for colleagues tomorrow.
Just one question. When I added the cream cheese to the frosting it went quite runny, and I had to add extra icing sugar. I used own brand full fat cheese from a supermarket; do you think it may have been better to use a branded one? Thanks in advance.
Wow, that cake looks amazing!!! Tiramisu is my hubby’s favourite desert but it’s something I’m not too keen on, but I think a slice of that cake would change my mind! Mary Berry is a true legend! Jill x
I remember too at the age of around 14/15 (around 1982) drooling over a Hamlyn cookbook which I thought was simply magical due to the square pictures of each dish (what it SHOULD look like when finished) in all it’s brashly coloured glory. It always struck me that the savoury dishes looked odd but oh my, the cakey section was sublime!!! Good old Hamlyn! I’m sure they still do cookbooks now actually!
I was no cook at 15, in fact it took me a few years before I got interested in cooking at all. That said, the first ever cookbook I bought was Mary Berry’s Complete Cookbook. It’s a whooper of a book and has a photo of each recipe, most important in my opinion. It now sits proudly amongst my huge collection of cookbooks. I digress, your Tiramisu Layer Cake looks fabulous and your photos are stunning. This is my kind of cake. Please send over a slice.
Thanks Julie. We’re recipe book twins!! Perhaps we should try and cook our way through it?!
Oh my goodness, that tiramisu looks amazing! Tiramisu is one of those desserts I love, love, love, but never make (not sure why). Pinning yours right now! Mel
Thanks Mel, let me know how you get on if you make it. The cake is more a taste of it, I’ll blog about the original sometime though 🙂