Biscoff Cake with Pear and White Chocolate

Biscoff cake with pear and white chocolate mascarpone frosting is a decadent, creamy, and rather sophisticated layer cake. Try it once and expect it to become one of your favourite Biscoff cake recipes.

THIS POST CONTAINS AFFILIATE LINKS. AS AN AMAZON ASSOCIATE I EARN FROM QUALIFYING PURCHASES.

This Biscoff cake with pear and white chocolate came about because I told my husband that I was planning on making a chocolate cake for my Father-in-law’s birthday. He groaned. Very loudly.

To be fair, there has been alot of chocolate cake floating around my kitchen recently.

All I can say is thanks for the groans. I went away, feeling more than chippy but in the end came up with the notion of this glorious and rather dramatic looking Biscoff cake instead.

Why Make this Recipe?

This Biscoff cake recipe, in a nutshell comprises:

• Biscoff spread and semi-dried pears in the cake batter
• A lick of Biscoff spread inside each layer
• Plus a generous covering of white chocolate mascarpone frosting inside each layer and on the top
• Naked style outer frosting
• Crushed Biscoff biscuits and dried pear wafers

It’s quite a nutshell really.

The crowning glory is the circle of pears which bring to mind flames. Naturally, I’m hoping this Biscoff cake is hot enough to spark your interest and entice you to bake it.

Ingredients: What is Biscoff?

I’m sure most people know what Biscoff biscuits and spreads are. But a few people, such as my husband until 2 months ago, may not. So for the few people yet to be enlightened, let me thrill you:

• Biscoff is a biscuit with a crunchy bite and distinctive & deep caramelised flavour
• The spread is made from these cookies and can be enjoyed on toast, in bakes or straight from the jar (who me?) – available in smooth and crunchy

By the way, my husband is now addicted to this stuff.

Instructions

There are 4 stages to complete when making this Biscoff cake recipe:

• slice and oven-dry the pears
• make the cake
• make the frosting
• assemble the cake

Each section is very easy and manageable. Since the pears take a while to dry in the oven (1-3 hours) I suggest starting with this section well ahead of time.

Tips for Making Pear Wafers

This wonderful pear cake recipe incorporates a double whammy of home-dried pears. First of all chunks of semi-dried pears are folded into the cake batter. Then, fully dried pear slices are used to adorn the finished Biscoff cake in a dramatic and eye-catching fashion.

This type of decoration is cheap and very easy to achieve:

• Begin by cutting each pear in half and, using a mandolin, slice 4 wafer-thin slices from each pear (2 from each half)
• Next, peel and core the remaining pieces of pear. Cut into thin chunks.
• Lay the chunks and the full slices in a single layer on a large baking tin covered with parchment and cook at 120C/ 250F/ GM ½ for 1 hour
• Remove the chunks and set aside to cool.
• Turn the remaining pear slices over then cook for a further hour at 100C/ 210F/ GM ¼ then turn once more and cook for 1 more hour, by which time they should be golden and crisp
• Set aside to cool down

Warning: homemade pear wafers do not have a long shelf-life. For this reason, make them on the day you intend to serve the cake and do not refrigerate them. Add to the finished cake just before taking to the table, otherwise they will wilt and flop.

The pear chunks go directly into the cake batter, so do not suffer in the same way. I do, however, suggest eating the cake within 2 days to avoid the semi-dried pears leaking moisture into the cake.

Tips for Making the Biscoff and Pear Cake

At the heart of this Biscoff cake recipe is a basic sponge cake made using the creaming method. But I’ve added 3 ingredients to the standard recipe:

• Biscoff spread (crunchy or smooth is fine)
• Buttermilk
• Semi-dried pears

I felt that adding buttermilk, renown for producing a succulent crumb in cakes, was a worthy addition here to counterbalance the addition of the biscuit spread which could easily have made the cake dense. It worked a treat.

Before starting to make cake batter I always like to preheat my oven and prepare my baking tins. This way I can get my cake in the oven as soon as it is mixed and those raising agents are activated.

I always grease my tins and use a circle of baking parchment to line the base. These 2 measures help ensure my cake never gets stuck in the pan.

Please note the recipe presented is for a 3 layer Biscoff cake made in 6-inch circular tins. Advice on scaling up this recipe is in the footnotes of my recipe card.

• Begin by creaming the butter, sugar and Biscoff spread together until light and fluffy
• Next beat in the eggs, bit by bit (to reduce the risk of the batter splitting), followed by the buttermilk
• Add the flour and baking soda, mixing well
• Finally, fold in the semi-dried pear chunks
• Divide equally between the 3 tins (approx ⅔ full) and bake until a skewer poked into the centre of the cake comes out clean

• 

• 

• 

• 

I always let my cakes rest in their baking tins for 2 minutes once I’ve taken them out of the oven. They will shrink slightly, pulling away from the edge of the tin. This helps get them out of the tins more easily.

Tips for Mascarpone Frosting

Notice I have not called this white chocolate mascarpone frosting a buttercream since it contains no butter. Nor is it an icing – it contains not a scrap of icing sugar.

Instead, this dreamy creamy frosting is made from 3 simple ingredients:

• Mascarpone cream cheese
• White chocolate
• Cream

It is important to use only Mascarpone cheese for this recipe. It has a sublimely creamy and mild taste that works wonders with the white chocolate. Regular cream cheese has a much stronger flavour and a less creamy finish.

The fat content of the cream should be around 35%. Here in the UK, double cream fits the bill. In the US the equivalent is commonly known as heavy cream.

Just three steps are required to make the mascarpone frosting:

• Melt the chocolate
• Whip the mascarpone and then whisk in the melted chocolate
• Pour in the cream and whip until it thickens to the soft peak stage

My top tip for making this white chocolate mascarpone frosting is to take care not to overbeat the mixture. Doing so will result in a split frosting that does not look attractive.

Once whipped, put the cream in the fridge for 20 minutes to firm up – longer if making on a hot day. Remove before it firms up too much and use to spread and pipe onto the cake.

Assembling the Cake

This final stage is undoubtedly the most rewarding phase – seeing your carefully baked sponge layers transform into a spectacular Biscoff cake laden with pear and white chocolate flavours:

• Lay a single layer of sponge onto a flat surface
• Spread some white chocolate mascarpone frosting over the top
• Take another sponge layer and spread with Biscoff then flip it over to top the bottom cake layer

• 

• 

• Add more frosting to the exposed top of this second layer and spread more Biscoff onto one side of the remaining sponge cake, then flip this onto the top of the cake layers
• You should now have all 3 cakes stacked on top of each other
• Spoon some frosting over the top of the cake and smooth out
• Load the remaining frosting into a piping bag fitted with a wide plain round nozzle (I used a Wilton 1A) and pipe frosting into the gap between the layers and a little around the edges
• Use a bench scraper to run around the sides of the cake to smooth out the frosting and remove any excess until the naked style is achieved
• Use the remaining frosting to pipe 12 mounds around the top of the cake in a circle
• When ready to serve, push a pear wafer into each mound of frosting, crush 2 Biscoff biscuits to fine crumbs and use to fill in the centre of the cake, scattering a little over each mound of frosting too

• 

• 

• 

• 

Frequently Asked Questions

More Biscoff Recipes to Try out:

This spread is really a very popular baking ingredient and there is no shortage of Biscoff recipes around to dive into. Here are a few of my favourite ideas:

• Easy Biscoff Flapjack
• Biscoff chocolate chip cookies
• No-bake chocolate Biscoff bars
• Biscoff swirl brownies

Try my Other Fancy Cakes:

• Chocolate & vanilla malted milkshake cake
• Cinnamon apple cake with maple buttercream
• Triple-layer coffee cake
• Ombre matcha cake

Tell me about your favourite Biscoff recipes? Or if you bake this Biscoff cake let me know how you got along by leaving a comment or rating.

Pin this Recipe:

• 

•