Number Cake Recipe | Alphabet Cake | How to Make Cream Tart
Decorative Cream Tart recipe, also known as Numbers cake or letter cake or Alphabet Cake. This cake is super trendy on Instagram. Basically it is tart based cake with delicious mascarpone cream, decorated with fresh fruits, meringue, flowers and more. This cake is perfect for birthday or any special occasion.
Number Cake Recipe | Alphabet Cake | How to Make Cream Tart
Ingredients
For the crust:
- 300 g 2.5 cups – 1 tbsp flour
- 75 g ⅝ cup ground almond
- 75 g 2/3 cup powdered sugar
- 200 g 7.05 oz cold butter
- 1 egg
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- Pinch salt
For the cream:
- 400 g 14.1 oz mascarpone or cream cheese
- 400 ml 1⅔ cups heavy cream
- 150 g 1⅓ cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
For decoration:
- Macaroons strawberries, raspberries, meringue Kisses, chocolates, flowers and more.
Instructions
- DIRECTIONS1. In a food processor, process cold cubed butter, flour, ground almond, powdered sugar and pinch salt. Process until crumbs are formed. Add egg and vanilla extract, process until dough is formed. 2. Transfer the dough to a work surface, pat into a ball and flatten into a disk. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 1 hour. 3. Preheat oven to 180C/375F. 4. Roll out the dough on a parchment paper. Refrigerate for 30 minutes and cut your number/letter/shape. From the leftovers roll again the dough, refrigerate for 30 minutes and cut another number/letter/shape. For one cake you will need two layers of biscuit. 5. Bake for 10-13 minutes or until slightly golden in the edges. Let cool completely. 6. Make the cream: in a large bowl beat mascarpone and powdered sugar. Beat until smooth. Add vanilla extract and heavy cream and beat to stiff peaks. Transfer to a piping bag (you can buy piping bags and tips here: cake decorating kit) 7. Pipe the mascarpone cream over the first biscuit, then gently place the second biscuit on top. Pipe the remaining cream and decorate as you like. Frequently asked questions: CAN WE MAKE NUMBER CAKE A DAY AHEAD? The number cake is at its best in the day of the preparation, but yes, you can prepare the tarts a day ahead, store them in the fridge. Also prepare the cream a day a head or in the day of serving and store in the fridge. Then, when ready to serve, pipe the cream over the tarts and assembly the cake and serve. But I would not recommend making the whole cake ahead of time, as the tart become soggy after some tome. HOW TO MAKE THE BEST NUMBER CAKE? To make the best number cake for the birthday of your loved ones you must follow these steps: 1. Go trough ingredient list and make sure you have all the ingredients ready. 2. To avoid mistakes, before you start making the cake, read the recipe instructions at least one time and watch the full video. Make sure you understand the whole process. 3. Print and cut the numbers/letters in advance. 4. Make sure you chill the dough in the fridge. 5. Decide how to decorate the cake before you start. 5. Don't assembly the cake ahead of time, otherwise the tart will become too soggy after one day. CAN THE MASCAROPNE BE REPLACED? Yes, instead of mascarpone you can use full fat cream cheese in the same amount. WHAT DECORATIONS CAN WE USE TO MAKE TART CAKE? If you wondering how you can decorate your letter cakes, I can give some ideas, but you need to remember that the options are endless and you can be as creative as you like and adjust the cake decorations to the person the cake is made for. Here are some ideas: macaron cookies, meringue kisses, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, mango cubs, kiwi, grapes, any fresh berries or fruits, chocolate, chocolate bars, candies, edible flowers, sprinkles, nuts, cocoa powder, marshmallows and more. WHAT SIZE IS THE LETTERS CAKE/TART CAKE/NUMBER CAKE? In this recipe I printed the number in a full A4 size, then I cut the number out of the paper, placed on the rolled dough as you can see in the video. If you prefer making a smaller size, you can do it, but I would not recommend making a bigger size. More Birthday Cake Recipes:
Video
Should i make the cake the day before and is it possible for me to leave it overnight in the refrigerator without ruining it?
How does one cut and serve this kind of cake? Will the cookies crumble?
I assume it must be regrigerated?
Are we suppose to keep first layer of cake and icing over it in fridge,Inorder to avoid cream to get squished when we will put next layer of cake. If yes hen god how long?
I don’t know if it withholds with out refrigeration to be honest.. but i put cream on first layer placed in fridge done the next number placed in fridge then took one out placed the second layer ontop slowly and it held nicely as the cookie is really light anyway! Hope this helps
This turned out amazing and delicious! Absolutely loved it and it brightened my 13 year old cousins day when she saw it!!
Hi what is the texture of the cookie meant to be once it is cooked? Crunchy? Soft?
I doubled this recipe for a double digit number, and wow did I not need to! Don’t know if I made the numbers too small, but I ended up making 8 numbers and still having dough left over 😂 a bowl full of icing left over, too. But it all tasted amazing!
I also doubled the mix for 2 numbers – have a vast amount of the cream left over! Can it be frozen?
Maybe if it’s in an airtight container? I used what I could for a batch of macarons and dumped the rest, since it wasn’t holding up after a few days in the fridge.
Is it possible to use this recipe but make it chocolate flavoured if so how much cocoa for the biscuit and mascarpone?
Also will it hold up the same way ?
Hi
How big is this cake?
A4 size
Hi, how is the texture of the crust after cooking, can you cut it easily? Or it breaks? Thanks
Hi it should be soft in the middle and a golden crust on the outside
What type of flour is needed please? I’m from the UK if that helps! Thank you
House
Could you use half mascarpone and half cream cheese because I only have 8 oz of mascarpone?
Really good recipe. Thanks!
I am going to be doing this but in a chocolate form and putting a cheesecake filling instead of buttercream. To decorate it will have mini biscuits cut from left over dough and mini meringues as well as an assortment of mini chocolates.
Fingers crossed it works out for me.
Tried this recipe on the weekend. Very simple but bit of time consuming as I needed a double digit cake. Definitely different from the usual and makes the occasion beautiful.
Thank you for the recipe.
Hello! I had a question I have tried the cream tart and it’s delicious, would I be able to use the same recipe to make the shell of a 9” fruit tart? If so, what would you recommend The baking time should be? Thank you!!
This is my go to recipe as a cake baker for my number cakes. Any tips for making this gluten free for someone ? Do I just omit the flour and use GF flour? Any tricks to make it a little sturdier ?
Hey I was just wondering if I could make this cake with out the food processor?
Mine just broke and I wanted to make the cake still….
Hey I was just wondering if I could make this cake with out the food processor?
Mine just broke and I wanted to make the cake still….
Yes, you can. it would be harder to make, but it’s possible.
Is it possible to make the cream with chocolate. How much should I add? Bitter or milk?
Thanks,
is ground almond the same as almond flour?
I’ve tried making the dough for this cake three times abd each time it comes out crumbly and not doughy. I triple checked the ingredients and measurements but it just doesn’t work. Any advice on what can be going wrong?
Hi,
I’ve made this dough twice. The first time it came out perfectly and I could pick up the letter with no problem.
The second time I made it the letter would crumble when I tried to pick it up. Not sure what I did wrong since I followed the recipe exactly both times.
The instructions say to beat the cheese and powdered sugar and then add the whipping cream. That seemed not right to me but I followed the instructions. Gently mixing in my stand mixer then adding the liquid (heavy whipping cream) Complete disaster! Expensive complete disaster! It only became soupy with globs of mascarpone.
I find it hard to believe that anyone genuinely had success with this recipe.
Hello, why A3 size isn’t recommend?
omg it was delicious, i made it for my birthday everyone has loved it. so thank you so much for this recipe! 🤭
How many servings would you say one number provides roughly? In the A4 size. I’m looking at making a 4 and a 0. Thank you!
Hard to tell extactly, I would say one number is about 8 servings.