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This gorgeous Rose Rhubarb Layer Cake is what you need to celebrate a special occasion! Vanilla sponge layer cake filled with rhubarb curd and covered with mascarpone frosting.
For a simple everyday cake, take a look at my Rhubarb Cake Sharlotka. 
I don’t bake grand layer cakes often but when I do my heart and soul go into them. I imagine myself in a top bakery where everything is possible. Where I can have my dream cake. Then I build my cake…in my mind.
You would think that after that process I’d be set but you would be wrong. Even on the baking day I change my mind again and then again and then again…I change it at least 500 times.
In this instance I changed what type of sponge I wanted, what type of icing I wanted and decorations but one thing remained constant. Rhubarb Curd. I knew from the start the cake would revolve around it. I knew I wanted to make a rhubarb layer cake.
Let me tell you no one was disappointed, most importantly I wasn’t disappointed. The cake we had for Easter was lighter than a cloud, vanilla bean flavoured sponge, layered with sweet and slightly tart rhubarb curd and encased in luscious rose water mascarpone cream.
As much as I love a good chocolate cake delicate vanilla and fruit cakes have a special place in my heart. This one is so light and springy!!
Don’t be intimidated by the lengthy recipe card and time spent in the kitchen. I tried to be as detailed as possible, which made it long! Also, this cake is WORTH IT!
Recipe Tips and Notes
- Prepare the rhubarb curd at least one day before baking the cake. It needs time to chill and set in a fridge. The curd is thickened with cornstarch. A firmer than usual consistency is necessary for the curd to stand up to the cake layers.
- Follow instructions for the cake sponge carefully. This particular sponge recipe is very delicate and very light, similar to Angel’s Food cake but it uses whole eggs instead of just egg whites. The height of the sponge is 100% reliant on the eggs and how well they are whipped. For detailed instructions, read this article and watch the video.
- Soak the sponge layers with the syrup to add more moisture and flavour during the assembling of the cake.
- Finally, mascarpone tends to separate if over-whipped. Both mascarpone and the heavy cream need to be straight out of a fridge. Use the instructions as written if using double cream. If using whipping cream, whip the cream first until soft peaks form, then fold it into slightly whipped mascarpone. This extra step prevents the icing from separating and especially relevant to the US and Canadian readers due to the dairy products variation.
If you make this Rhubarb Layer Cake, I would love to see your photos! Tag @vikalinka when you share them on Instagram!
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More layer cake recipes
Rose Rhubarb Layer Cake
Ingredients
For the Rhubarb Curd
- 400g(4 long stalks) rhubarb
- 3 eggs, large
- 170g/3/4 cup unsalted butter, cubed
- 3 tsp cornflour/corn starch
- 150g/3/4 cup caster sugar/ granulated sugar
- a drop of pink colouring, optional
For the Cake
- 5 eggs, room temperature, large
- 200g/1 cup white granulated sugar
- 1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped out
- 140g/1 cup all purpose/plain flour
For the Syrup (for soaking the sponge layers)
- 4 tbsp elderflower liqueur
- 4 tbsp simple syrup, a solution of water and sugar in equal parts
- 2 drops rose water
For the Mascarpone Cream
- 500g/2 cups mascarpone, chilled from fridge
- 250ml/1 cup double/whipping cream
- 100g/1/2 cup icing sugar
- 2 tsp This is an affiliate link.vanilla
- 2-3 drops rose water , or less depending on the strength of rose water
For decoration
- lemon thyme sprigs
- organic pink flowers
- dried rose petals
Instructions
For the Rhubarb Curd
- *Prepare the rhubarb curd at least a day before assembling the cake. Wash and cut rhubarb stalks in 2″ sections, put them in the bowl of a food processor and process until then turn into a pulp. Push it through a fine sieve with a spoon to extract all the juice, then discard the pulp. You should get about 300 ml/ 1¼ cup of rhubarb juice.
- In a food processor or blender mix eggs, sugar and cornflour/corn starch until you have a homogenous mixture with no lumps remaining. Alternatively you can do this step by hand using a bowl and a whisk.
- In a saucepan combine 1 cup of rhubarb juice, egg, sugar and corn starch mixture and cubed butter, set the pan over low heat and star cooking it while stirring with a whisk the entire time until butter melts and the curd thickens. Do not turn the heat up to speed up the process or the eggs will turn into scrambled eggs and the curd go lumpy!
- Take off the heat when the curd is the consistency of thick sour cream. You may push it through a fine sieve again to ensure there are no lumps and the curd is silky smooth. Add the remaining rhubarb juice to increase the tart flavour of the rhubarb and a drop of pink food colouring if desired as the curd loses its colour when cooks!
- Chill in the fridge for at least 3 hours or overnight. The rhubarb curd will thicken when chilled.
For the Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350F/180C.
- Grease 3 8″ cake pans and line them with parchment paper. (Don’t be tempted to skip this stage, the sponge is very delicate, so it’s important to use parchment paper for easy removal.)
- Crack 5 eggs at room temperature to a bowl of a stand mixer and add sugar and vanilla been seeds, beat at high speed for 5 minutes until the mixture is pale and triples in volume.
- Fold in flour through a sifter in 3 additions blending it in gently after each addition. Your goal is to keep the volume of the egg mixture so be very careful in this step of the process.
- Divide your cake batter among 3 pans, I weigh mine to make sure they are exactly the same and bake for 25-30 minutes until cake tester or tooth pick comes out clean and the cakes have risen to the top of the pan. (I baked 2 layers and then 1 later).
- Cool for 10 minutes and then run a knife around the edges of your pans to release the cakes and flip them over on a wire rack to cool completely.
- (After your cakes have cooled you can individually wrap them in plastic wrap for later use. You can bake you sponge layers up to 2 days ahead.)
For the Syrup
- In a measuring cup mix together simple syrup, elderflower liqueur for beautiful floral notes and 2-3 drops of rose water, the amount of which largely depends on the strength of it. Each brand is different, so it's important to taste and smell to determine the desired amount. Add with caution as it can smell like a perfume instead of a dessert if too much rose water is used.
For the Mascarpone Cream
- In a bowl of a stand mixer whip well-chilled mascarpone for no longer than 30 seconds with a balloon attachment until light, add heavy/double cream, icing sugar, vanilla and rose water and whip for 1-2 minutes longer until it looks like thick whipped cream. If your mascarpone cream is too thick and hard to spread add a splash of heavy/double cream and whip for just a few seconds longer to loosen it.
Assemble the cake
- Load 1/3 of mascarpone cream in a large piping bag with a plain round tip.
- Pipe a border around the first drizzled with syrup layer, this will prevent rhubarb curd filling from spilling out, fill the space inside the border with rhubarb curd.
- Top with the next layer and repeat the actions. Place the third layer on top and cover the entire cake with a thin layer of mascarpone cream also known as crumb coating. Place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. When the crumb coat is firm frost the cake with the rest of the mascarpone cream.
- Decorate the top with lemon thyme, small organic pink flowers and rose petals.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
What is the dark pink layer between the cake and the curd?
Good question! I’ve actually answered it in comments somewhere. I was experimenting and tinted two layers pink but decided to do a swirl design rather than solid pink. I didn’t mention it in the recipe as it didn’t contribute to the taste and wasn’t really visible! 🙂
Hi Julia,
I am planning on making this amazing looking cake, but wanted to ask a couple of questions first. 1 being for the mascarpone part – it references using a “balloon attachment” – if I am using a hand mixer will that be an issue? 2nd are you able to recommend / share which Rose water you used? Lastly, when rhubarb is not in season – is there something else you think could work well as a substitute for this cake? I plan on making it as written was just curious if you experimented with anything else other than rhubarb. 😊
Looking forward to making / trying this cake!!
Thank you ~
Hi Mila, you can definitely use a hand mixer. For the rose water I recommend looking at Middle Eastern brands either online or in the ethnic aisle of your supermarket. Finally the rhubarb could be replaced with lemon since it’s a curd you’d be making and lemon curd is the most typical one, which could also be purchased.
Thank you so much for your quick response, and for the information. 😊
I will report back.
My husband made this cake for me on my birthday!! it was delicious!! it took him two days because he messed up and needed to repeat few things. But at the end, he got it! delicious flavors!!
Hello, thanks for the recipe. I made it.
Some suggestions, you only have a couple of finished cake photos and no photos of the process, nor video. This isn’t a really complicated cake, but it does have different layers and ingredients, it would be helpful to see some of the process and I’m not a beginner, but still there are many sponge cake recipes and they end up different too. For instance the consistency of the cake when whipping the eggs and how big the layers should be, I ended up using slightly more flour, because otherwise it was way too liquid and I really had to second guess afraid to go away from the recipe too much, because that can usually mean a disaster in the end, but seeing yours in process would have taken the guess work out more. Also, the consistency of the whipped Mascarpone (mine definitely looked more liquid than yours from what I can see in the finished photo), it didn’t stand as much as yours when piping and covering with the second layer and I didn’t add as much of heavy cream as in your recipe, otherwise it would have turned even more liquid. Had I seen your photos (or a video ) of the whipping process, I would have gone without the heavy cream. I just thought maybe it would set more after being refrigerated, which doesn’t seem to be the case.
Also the curd because it has rhubarb juice added would be nice to see how it looked on your end. I didn’t have the problem others did, maybe because I’m used to making them, so mine wasn’t liquid at all, I didn’t really need the cream border for it (even though I still did it), yet it also doesn’t look as thick as yours, as a separate “standing” layer as your does in the cut cake photo. Not sure if it just seems like that on a photo.
Other than that your cake is beautiful! The sponge layers DO look like Angel cake which is exactly what I was looking for, light and delicate. I loved the combination of the rhubarb and rose, it makes it very summery.
Hi Kas, great points! I completely understand why seeing a video of this type of sponge would be helpful and that is exactly why linked to one. If you look closely at the body of the article you will see RHUBARB LAYER CAKE RECIPE NOTES AND TIPS, that is the section to pay attention to as it identifies potential errors and provides solutions to them. That is where I also linked to a video of this sponge. I also address the issue of mascarpone being too liquid (usually because it’s either too warm or overwhipped) and how to deal with it. I try to provide additional information in my posts as it is impossible to include everything in the recipe alone. They are not just fluff to annoy my readers. 🙂
Hi, the curd has been in the fridge for 2 hours now (before it cooled for 30ish minutes at room temperature. I cooked it for like 20 minutes and it was still liquid, now after 2 hours in the fridge it’s still very runny. Should I heat it up again or put some starch in it to thicken up?
The directions state to chill it for at least 3 hours or overnight. I would chill it longer however, if it was very liquidy after cooking it, there is a chance it wasn’t cooked long enough. It should be thick to start with as it’s described in the instructions, not runny. You can try and add more starch if it doesn’t thicken but I am not sure it will work at this point.
Hey, I cooked it again over a hot water bath for 30ish minutes and just added more cornstarch. Probably too much but it worked really well! No clumps and a creamy lovely curd. The cake was a hit! Doing it again for my birthday 😊
So glad to hear it, Flori!
The flowers decorating the cake are they eaten? I know you can eat rose pedals.
Yes, generally speaking you should only decorate your cakes with edible flowers. People might choose not to eat them but at least you know they are safe!