Scratch Neapolitan Layer Cake is a three layer cake with a layer of chocolate, a layer of vanilla and a top layer of strawberry cake. I put it together using two of my favorite scratch cake recipes, added in some strawberry flavorings, and topped the cake with an American style white buttercream frosting. The recipe needs some new photos, but the cake was actually very good.
Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Layer
For the chocolate layer, the recipe calls for the old Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake recipe. It's a very dense and moist cake that is good on its own, but works very well as the one lone chocolate layer in a Neapolitan themed cake.
Strawberry and Vanilla Layers
Since the chocolate layer is moist and fairly dense, the texture of Bonnie Butter Cake, an old one from Betty Crocker, matched that. I originally made each color batter separately, but I found that was not necessary and that I could just divide one big bowl of vanilla batter into two bowls and add strawberry extract and strawberry gelatin half. The extra gelatin did NOT make it overly sweet.
Frosting
The frosting here is just a really basic vanilla cream. You can use any vanilla frosting recipe you like or maybe go with chocolate or cream cheese. When I made the frosting I made ⅔ of what is in the card, and as you can see it was just barely enough. The amount in the card should give you enough to be more generous with the frosting.
New Photos
This cake is made with two well tested and well loved recipes, but the whole cake itself is one I need to re-test and assemble again for better photos. I'll update when I do, but if you'd like to try the recipe as is, here's how I did it!
Recipe
Scratch Neapolitan Layer Cake
Ingredients
Chocolate Batter:
- ¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (114 grams)
- ¾ teaspoons baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup granulated sugar (200 grams)
- 6 tablespoons unsweetened natural cocoa powder
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- ½ cup milk
- 1 large egg at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup boiling water or very hot coffee
Yellow Cake:
- 2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour (340 grams)
- 2 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ⅔ cup unsalted butter, softened but still cool (150 grams)
- 1 ¾ cup sugar (350 grams)
- 2 large eggs
- 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla
- 1 ¼ cups milk (270 grams)
- 2 tablespoons dry strawberry Jell-O
- ¼ teaspoon strawberry extract optional
Vanilla Frosting
- 3 sticks unsalted butter, softened
- 4 ½ to 5 cups powdered sugar
- ¼ cup half & half or milk plus more as needed
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Have ready 3 greased and floured 9-inch round cake pans.
- Prepare the chocolate cake first. In a mixing bowl, stir together flour through cocoa powder. Add the oil, milk, egg, vanilla and stir until well mixed. Stir in the boiling water or coffee. Beat with an electric mixer for about 30 to 60 seconds or until smooth, then pour into the pan. Bake for about 30 minutes. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto a rack and let cool completely.
- While chocolate cake bakes, wash out the mixing bowl and beaters and start preparing the vanilla batter.
- First, weigh the mixing bowl so you'll be able to weigh it with batter and estimate the weight of the batter.
- Mix the flour, baking powder and salt together and set aside.
- With an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 30 seconds after each egg, then beat in the vanilla.
- With a big spoon or a heavy duty scraper, add the flour and milk alternately, beginning and ending with the flour. Beat on low speed until smooth. You should have about 5 ½ to 6 cups of batter, which you will divide in half.
- At this point, you can use weights so that you can precisely measure how much vanilla batter to add to the strawberry mix-ins OR you can just eyeball it and add about 2 ¾ cups of vanilla batter to the strawberry mix-ins.
- To make the strawberry batter, put the gelatin powder in a second mixing bowl. Stir in just ¾ cup of the vanilla batter and the strawberry extract to make a very concentrated red batter, then stir in 2 cups of vanilla batter so you have half vanilla batter and half strawberry batter.
- Put the batter in the two cake pans and bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out with moist crumbs. Let cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then invert and let cool completely.
- To assemble, frost and stack the cakes so that the chocolate is on the bottom, vanilla is in the center and strawberry is on top. Or stack it the way you want. It's not like I'm the queen of everything and you have to follow orders.
Frosting
- Beat 3 sticks (12 oz) softened unsalted butter until smooth and creamy.
- Gradually add 4 ½ cups of powdered sugar alternatively with the half & half or cream, stirring until mixture holds together. Add the salt and vanilla.
- Continue beating and scraping sides of bowl, adding whole milk as needed, until mixture is smooth and creamy.
- For a sweeter frosting, add a little more powdered sugar and milk.
Anna says
Can't believe I didn't mention that! I used three 9 inch round cake pans.
Dominyck Hubbard says
What size pan did you used for this recipe? I was planning on making it myself, and need to know what size pan to use
Ursula says
Thank you, used to have an old recipe for Neapolitan cake but it was lost in one of my moves. This one is similar and I am grateful for it, I will make it soon.
shirley says
Thanks Anna. I think? if I ever make this again ... I'd use a scratch recipe that includes cream cheese ... and go on from there. Right now its not on my agenda ... but I'm a bit leery of using many of the cake mixes with 'old' favorite recipes ... but maybe could figure it out... but not this year! You do this stuff SO well.
Anna says
Just went back and looked at the old recipe Shirley mentioned. Now that the amount of cake mix per box has been reduced from 18.25 oz to 15 or 16.25 oz depending on the brand, the old Bake-Off recipe probably needs some adjusting. Yet another reason to go with scratch!
Anna says
Shirley, that's a good one! You and I talked about it 4 years ago.
https://www.cookiemadness.net/2010/04/neapolitan-bundt-cake/
I need to make it again and maybe jazz it up a bit. All those drink mixes are still available, so no worries there ;).
shirley says
This looks SO yummy, Anna. However, I seldom make layer cakes --- bundt or sheet ...don't know why. Tho I have to say MY favorite Neopolitain is still the one from PBO book - 22nd bake off ... don't know if they still make that strawberry drink powder that was used ... should check some day I guess! Everyone always loved to see this cut - and the swirls were so pretty.
Katrina says
Love that you made a scratch version of this. Not a fan of cake mixes.
Todd says
I had a very large slice of this last night for dessert and it was awesome. My slice also had some chocolate ganache, a small splat of whipped cream, and a cherry on top. Highly recommended.
lisa keys says
genius recipe and I love not needing the food color
Anna says
Sue, yes. I've used it in baked goods -- specifically, the lemon flavored type.
Sue says
Have you tried or seen a recipe that uses pre sweetened Koolaid mix for the sugar in a cake? Do they even make pre sweetened Koolaid anymore? That seems like another way to get some color and flavor in the strawberry layer. Time to Google it I think. 🙂
Anna says
Sue, that was a good cake too. It kills me to look at it, though. I really should have added red food coloring.
Avril, thanks!
Cheryl, yes! I was thinking maybe a fudge icing or a chocolate glaze could be poured over the white icing -- kind of like in this old Halloween cake. https://www.cookiemadness.net/2007/10/creepy-chocolate-layer-cake/
I'm going to do that next time.
Cheryl says
I'm thinking a cream cheese frosting would really be tasty with maybe some type of chocolate as decoration. Kind of like an ice cream sundae using neapolitan ice cream and hot fudge topping.
The strawberry layer looks really moist and dense--not sure about that.
avril says
Gorgeous cake! 🙂
Sue says
This is a really fun idea for a cake. I wonder what it would be like with a layer from this recipe? https://www.cookiemadness.net/2014/02/scratch-strawberry-layer-cake-with-strawberry-cream-cheese-icing/
Wish I could come up with the time and an excuse to try it.
Anna says
Thank you, T! I loved the Neapolitan aspect, but along the way I discovered that the "Bonnie Butter Cake" is a pretty nifty little yellow cake recipe. I typically only use cake flour for yellow and white cakes, but the AP flour worked out really well in and the cake didn't have a cornbread like texture, which can happen with some AP flours.
T. Martin says
I was never a fan of Neopolitan ice cream but this looks really delicious.