Cinnamon Cookie Cake

With Christmas just around the corner, it is baking season! A year ago, I made a delectable cinnamon star cookie cake and my man loved it. Sadly I couldn't find the recipe anymore, but, out of sheer luck, I stumbled across it a few days ago and immediately set off to bake this cake for his birthday. 
It is the perfect Christmas cake and super-easy, so why not give it a try? ​

This recipe is for a 20 cm diameter cake tin, but I did it with a 15 cm one, it is up to you. 

Ingredients: 
For the sponge cake you will need: 
200 g of caster sugar
200 g of softened butter
200 g of self-raising flour (if you are in Vienna, Bobby's Foodstore has self-raising flower in their assortment)
4 beaten eggs
1 tsp of baking powder
2 tbsp milk

For the cream you will need: 
500 g mascarpone
150 g natural yogurt
60 g sugar
500 ml of cream
2 packages of cream stiffener
some cinnamon
15 cinnamon star cookies 
Some raspberry jam
Clementines or oranges for decoration
(100 g baking chocolate if wanted)

How to do it 

Heat the oven to 190 degrees fan and butter two sandwich tins. 

Beat the caster sugar, softened butter and eggs in a bowl until smooth. Add the self-raising flower, baking powder and milk and blend until the batter has a creamy and smooth texture. 
Divide everything into the two tins evenly and smooth the surface. Put in the oven for 20 minutes and check with a knife if the cake is not runny anymore and springs back. 

While the cake is baking, prepare the cream. Chop most of the cinnamon star cookies, but leave some for decoration, until they are crumbly. Blend the mascarpone, yogurt and sugar. Put the crumbly cinnamon star cookies into the mixture and add some cinnamon as well (as much as you like). Blend together once more and taste whether it is cinnamony enough. 

Beat the cream stiff in another bowl and add the sachets of cream stiffener slowly while beating. When the cream stands stiff without running, it's good to go. Blend the cream with the mascarpone mixture. 

If you want, you can melt chocolate and make half the cream into a chocolate cinnamon cream, or you only use the white cream - it's up to you. 

When the cake is ready to go out of the oven, put the tins on a cooling rack and let the cake cool completely. 

When the cake has cooled down, spread one of the halves with raspberry jam and spread the cream on top of it lavishly. Put the other cake half on top and ice the entire cake with the rest of the cream (white or chocolatey). Put some orange or clementine slices on top and decorate with the remaining cinnamon star cookies. 

Basically this recipe works with every kind of cookie, so why not also try out Oreo cake, Speculatius cake or shortbread cake?