Panda cake | Chocolate cake with marshmallow cream and a touch of raspberries

Ingredients:

Chocolate cake:
• 250g flour
• 200g sugar
• 60g cocoa
• 2 ts. baking soda
• 1 ts. baking powder
• 1/2 ts. salt
• 210g buttermilk
• 50ml oil
• 120g hot water
• 2 eggs
• 2 ts. vanilla

Cream:
• 5 egg whites
• 200g sugar
• 200g butter (room temperature)
• 300g mascarpone (room temperature)
• 2 ts. vanilla
• 1/4 ts. salt

Decoration and assembly:
• 200g raspberries (I put frozen)
• 6 tb. raspberry jam
• 20g mini meringue (marshmallow)
• 500g chocolate rolls (4 boxes of 125g)
• rosemary sprigs
• 1 plastic panda bear

Method of preparation:

Chocolate cake:
1) In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Sift all the ingredients through a sieve, except the sugar and salt. This will aerate the composition and you will get a fluffier cake.
2) In another bowl, mix all the wet ingredients: buttermilk, oil (I used olive oil, but you can put grape seeds if you want it to be tasteless), eggs, vanilla and hot water. Add hot water at the end, little by little and not all at once, so that the eggs do not cook.
3) Add the mixture of wet ingredients to the mixture of dry ingredients and mix for 2-3 minutes.
4) Pour the composition into three small trays (17 cm diameter) lined with baking paper and bake for 30 minutes in the preheated oven at 175 C degrees.

Cream:
1) Pasteurization of the egg whites. Put about 2 cm of water in a saucepan and let it boil. Place a heat-resistant bowl on top and make sure that the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water. Put the egg whites together with the sugar in the bowl and stir continuously for about 3 minutes, or until they reach a temperature of ’70 degrees. The sugar will dissolve and you will get the consistency of a syrup. Lift the bowl off the water and wipe the outside very well with a towel, so that water does not drip into the bowl of the mixer.
2) Transfer the pasteurized egg whites to the mixer bowl, which you have previously degreased with a napkin soaked in vinegar. Mix for 10 minutes until you get a firm meringue foam, which has reached close to room temperature.
3) Add the butter, stirring on low speed, then add the mascarpone and vanilla. Be careful not to mix too much because the mascarpone will be cut, if you are not sure with the addition of cheese, start mixing with a fork, manually.

Assembly
1) Cut the cake tops to be flat and grease them with raspberry jam.
2) Put the cream in a generous layer, put a row of raspberries and meringues, then repeat step 2)
3) Put the last top on top, and with the rest of the cream cover the whole cake in an even layer.
4) Around the edges, glue chocolate rolls, with unequal lengths and put rosemary leaves on the ends and on the sides, to create a bamboo forest.
5) Decorate with the panda bear and chocolate cut with a knife to imitate some wood.

Enjoy!