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This Neapolitan Millionaire Cake is a fun mix of flavors and textures! It has chocolate cake on the bottom, strawberry cheesecake in the middle and vanilla bean mousse on top. It’s a beautiful party in your mouth!
Neapolitan Millionaire Cake Recipe
Well I hope everyone had a great weekend and enjoyed the holiday. The hubs was out of town until late Saturday night, so I actually spent some time baking and catching up on some shows. It’s always nice to get a little time to catch up on my girly shows that the hubs doesn’t watch. 🙂
I did still get together with some friends for dinner and fireworks. I love watching fireworks and the past couple years we’ve had rain, so it was nice to finally see some fireworks this year!
Saturday I spent the third Saturday morning in a row taking Jessie (our black lab) to the vet. She has terrible summer allergies that cause her to scratch a bunch, which she has some medicine for, and it causes her to get ear infections if we don’t stay on top of cleaning them.
I do my best, but sometimes they get infected. She has a lot of skin folds in her ears where the doc says she’s more likely to get infection.
The first week they told us it was an infection on the outer part of the ear, then they checked again and it was the inner ear. Finally she got a clean bill of ear health this weekend. And I could tell even before we went that she was better.
She’d started not really being herself – kind of being a loner and not as playful. Finally she was back to being herself and constantly under my feet as I was baking. Of course, now I’m glad to have her there because it means she’s better. Want to sit right under where the mixer is and have powdered sugar rain down on you? Go for it. 🙂
So getting back to the cake, I made a funfetti version (Funfetti Millionaire Cake) a while back and it was seriously AMAZING! Like, really. So I knew I needed to do another version at some point.
Neapolitan always reminds me of the neapolitan ice cream sandwiches we’d eat as kids. I always loved them because of the strawberry. I think I’ve said it before, but I’ve always been a strawberry fan. I’d eat the other flavors first and save the strawberry part for last. Plus, it’s pink. 🙂
How to Make The Best Neapolitan Layer Cake
I used my favorite chocolate cake for the bottom layer. I always use Hershey’d Special Dark Cocoa, so it’s a pretty dark chocolate layer, but you could sub that out for regular cocoa, if you’d prefer.
I went with a strawberry cheesecake center and it is delicious! It took a couple tries to get the flavor just right. Strawberry surprising gets pretty hidden in a baked cheesecake in ways it didn’t when making a no bake version – No Bake Strawberry Milkshake Cheesecake. This one uses strawberry extract and then some food color, and the strawberry flavor is terrific. I could eat that all by itself – being a strawberry kid and all.
And then the vanilla bean mousse – I just love those little speckles! And the whipped vanilla icing on the outside is one of my favorite icings. So light and vanilla-y. Mmmm mmm.
There’s a bit of work required, but it’s really not a hard cake to make. The fun mix of textures make it super unique and totally worth it.
PrintNeapolitan Millionaire Cake
- Prep Time: 40 minutes
- Cook Time: 2 hours 10 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours 50 minutes
- Yield: 12-14 slices
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Description
This Neapolitan Millionaire Cake is a fun mix of flavors and textures! It has chocolate cake on the bottom, strawberry cheesecake in the middle and vanilla bean mousse on top. It’s a beautiful party in your mouth!
Ingredients
CHOCOLATE CAKE
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/4 + 1/8 cup Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 3/4 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup boiling water
STRAWBERRY CHEESECAKE
- 24 oz cream cheese
- 1 cup sugar
- 3 tbsp flour
- 1 cup sour cream
- 4 eggs
- 3 tbsp strawberry extract
- about 20 drops red food color
VANILLA BEAN MOUSSE
- 1 1/2 tsp powdered gelatin
- 1 1/2 tablespoons water
- 2 1/3 cups heavy cream, divided
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
WHIPPED VANILLA ICING
- 2 cups heavy whipping cream
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
TO MAKE THE CHOCOLATE CAKE:
TO MAKE THE STRAWBERRY CHEESECAKE:
TO MAKE THE VANILLA BEAN MOUSSE:
TO BEGIN PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER:
ONCE THE MOUSSE HAS SET, MAKE THE WHIPPED VANILLA ICING:
TO FINISH OFF THE CAKE:
Notes
I used the Ateco 849 icing tip for the top of the cake.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 Slice
- Calories: 762
- Sugar: 47.4 g
- Sodium: 393.4 mg
- Fat: 55.7 g
- Carbohydrates: 58.4 g
- Protein: 10.4 g
- Cholesterol: 205.6 mg
Filed Under:
Note: I used the Ateco 849 icing tip for the top of the cake.
Enjoy!
Other Amazing Cake Recipes
Recipes From Friends
Neapolitan Cheesecake from I Am Baker
Neapolitan Greek Yogurt Pudding Pops from In Katrina’s Kitchen
Neapolitan Cake From Brown Eyed Baker
Hi Lindsay
Do you think it is possible make cheesecake 8 “springform pan instead of 9” springform?
You could make the cheesecake layer in an 8 inch pan, but then you’d want to do the whole cake that way.
I am going to try and make this for a church event. Just one question how easy is it to take the cheesecake off of the parchment paper when it’s stacked with the vanilla mousse? I never removed a cheesecake from parchment paper without a crust?
It really shouldn’t be hard to do. As long as the cheesecake is fully baked, it should firm up very nicely when chilled. You should be able to flip it over onto your palm while you peel off the parchment.