Berry Orange Torte

This cake is also something I made a couple months ago and am finally getting around to posting the recipe.

One of my students was having a birthday the next day, and I was walking through the grocery store for inspiration. I came upon some magnificent looking blackberries that were on sale. They looked so good, I knew I needed to use them somehow. When I got home, I immediately began looking through cookbooks to see what I could make using the berries. I found a Taste of Home recipe I could adapt.

The recipe called for a box cake mix. Typically, I always prefer scratch, but I was short on time. The cake was very easy to make, and it turned out to be a real show stopper. I had also never used Mascarpone cheese before. Oh my! That stuff is goooood. You could easily substitute cream cheese in the recipe. But, I think I'm now going to start looking for more recipes to try that use Mascarpone cheese.

It's a beautiful cake. And if you chose to use a cake mix, no one would ever guess. I felt this was worthy of a German bakery.

Here's the lucky birthday girl. Happy birthday, Brielle!

Orange Berry Torte
adapted from Taste of Home

Ingredients:

• 1 18¼ oz. white cake mix (This is what I used due to lack of time, but you could certainly use your own favorite homemade white cake recipe.)
• 1 10 oz. package frozen sweetened berries thawed (I used a rasberry, blackberry, and blueberry mix.)
• 2 cups heavy whipping cream
• 1 8 oz. carton Mascarpone cheese
• ¾ cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons orange juice
• ½ teaspoon grated orange peel
• 2 cups fresh berries (in this case blackberries, but I would also recommend raspberries)

Prepare and bake cake according to package directions, using two greased 9-in. round baking pans. cool on a wire rack until completely cooled.

Press sweetened berries through a sieve, and discard seeds. Set berry puree aside  In a chilled small mixing bowl and with chilled beaters, beat cream until stiff peaks form. In a large mixing bowl, beat the Mascarpone cheese, sugar, orange juice and orange peel. Fold in whipped cream.

Split each cake into tow horizontal layers. Place bottom layer on a serving plate. Bush with about ¼ cup berry puree. Spread with about 1 cup cream mixture, and top with ½ cup of fresh berries. Repeat layers three times. Refrigerate until serving.