This Lotus Biscoff cake recipe combines moist brown sugar sponge cake layers, Biscoff spread, and a luxurious Biscoff buttercream (mousseline cream to be exact). Caramel, cinnamon, brown sugar, and spicy flavor can be found in this Lotus Cake recipe that you can make easily following my step-by-step baking guide.
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📖 What is Biscoff
Biscoff is a name for Belgian speculoos cookies produced by Lotus Bakeries. "Biscoff" as such most often refers to Lotus Biscoff Cookies. Biscoff cookies have crunchy textures and unique flavors; a wonderful mix of sweetness, caramel, and a hint of spice.
After the original Biscoff biscuit gained international fame, the company launched a new product called Lotus Biscoff Cookie Butter (also known as Biscoff spread). It's basically a cookie spread that is made of Biscoff cookies and several other ingredients. It tastes so much like Biscoff cookies but it's spreadable and you can use it as a topping on various treats! No Biscoff spread in your pantry? No problem! Try my homemade Lotus Biscoff butter recipe!
🌟 Why this is the best recipe
- It's rather easy - The result looks fancy, but the process isn't! The classic sponge cake only needs simple ingredients, the incredible Biscoff frosting is also rather simple as well. Even if you're a beginner baker, you can easily follow this step-by-step guide!
- From scratch cake recipe - Some cake recipes use cake mix as the ingredients. That might sound simple but actually, making a layer cake from scratch lets you have control of the amounts of the ingredients to achieve a super moist and tender cake!
- No fancy equipment is needed- You will of course need an oven, cake pans, and nozzle tip. You will also need to measure the ingredients using a digital scale. But you don't need complicated equipment to have this delicious Biscoff cake!
- It's crazy delicious - This is hands down the ultimate Lotus Biscoff cake recipe when it comes to flavor! Buttery, rich, sponge cakes filled with luxurious Biscoff-flavored mousseline cream and homemade cookie butter spread! This delicious combo is just too good to resist!
- It's so pretty - Not only does it taste good, but this Lotus cake is also gorgeous! Impress your whole family with this homemade Lotus Biscoff cake"
📝 Ingredient notes
Making Lotus cake is straightforward if you follow my step-by-step guide. But please try your best to gather all of these exact ingredients for the best result.
For the Brown sugar Cake layers
- Butter: Unsalted butter with 82% fat content is perfect for this recipe. Do not use salted butter as it will be hard to adjust the saltiness level. To make the Lotus cake layers, make sure the unsalted butter is at room temperature (soft and not cold).
- Sugar: For this Lotus Biscoff recipe, I use a mix of granulated sugar and brown sugar. If you're interested in learning more about sugar, check out my sugar guide.
- Flour: Use all-purpose flour to make this Biscoff layered cake. Remember to sift the flour before using it to avoid lumps in the batter. Don't forget to check out my flour guide to learn more about flour.
- Cinnamon: We include a small amount of cinnamon in the cake batter to enhance the special Biscoff flavor!
- Baking powder: It helps increase the volume of the cake.
- Salt: You will need a little amount of it, but it's essential! It balances the flavor and sweetness of the cake layers.
- Milk: Whole milk at room temperature.
🛒 You’ll find detailed measurements for all Ingredients in the printable version of the Recipe Card at the bottom of this post
For the Biscoff buttercream frosting
This is a Biscoff-flavored German buttercream frosting (also called mousseline cream), the most delicious cake frosting that you will ever make! Mousseline cream is a custard-based frosting that is enriched with butter, absolutely out of this world!
- Milk: Whole milk at room temperature.
- Sugar: Use regular white granulated sugar. You can adjust the amount of sugar if you want. Be sure to check out my sugar guide to learn more about different types of sugar.
- Egg: I recommend using the egg yolk, not the whole egg to achieve the best texture and flavor on the pastry cream.
- Cornstarch: It helps build consistency. The more you add this, the thicker the cream will be.
- All-purpose flour: All-purpose flour also helps build consistency of the frosting. Don't worry, it won't taste like flour! If you want to learn more about flour, please check out my flour guide.
- Vanilla bean paste: Fine, pure vanilla is best!
- Butter: Use soft, unsalted butter at room temperature. If the butter is too cold, it can be hard to combine. If the butter is in liquid form, the cream can get runny. The butter is a super important ingredient in this frosting. It will be used to make the pastry cream and to convert the pastry cream into mousseline cream.
- Biscoff spread: Biscoff cookie spread is a very special ingredient here! You can buy it or you can make it at home using my homemade Lotus Biscoff butter recipe. It has a combination of sweetness and caramel flavor plus a hint of cinnamon spice. Super delicious!
🛒 You’ll find detailed measurements for all Ingredients in the printable version of the Recipe Card at the bottom of this post
👩🍳 How to make this recipe
1. How to make moist brown sugar sponges
In order to achieve the best result, first of all, measure your ingredients precisely using a digital scale. Measuring the ingredients using cups have some risk of inaccuracy and it can greatly affect the result.
This cookie butter cake recipe will need an oven. And the oven will take some time to heat up. So, don't forget to prepare the oven before baking. Preheat your oven to 175 C/347 F (no fan). Then, follow these steps:
- Using an electric hand mixer, mix butter and sugar. It can take up to several minutes until it gets fluffy. After that, add the egg and continue whipping until they're combined
- In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, salt, cinnamon, and baking powder
- Grab the milk. Pour half of it into the bowl of whipped mixture. Use a rubber spatula to mix them.
- Grab the sifted, mixed dry ingredients. Pour half of them into the mixing bowl of whipped mixture.
- Add the remaining milk to the whipped mixture. Then, add the remaining dry ingredients. Mix them well.
- Divide the cake batter between the 3 pans equally using a digital scale. Don´t forget to grease your baking pans
- Bake the cake at 175 C/ 347 F (no fan). It should be done in about 20 minutes.
- During the final minutes, check the inner part of the cake by inserting a toothpick. If it comes out clean, it means that the baking is complete. So, take out your Lotus cake layers immediately and let them cool down in a cooling rack.
Should you come across any issues, please check my article about potential baking issues eg. sinking cake, and how to avoid it.
💡 Top Tip: Make sure that all ingredients are at room temperature before mixing them. Cold ingredients may prevent emulsification to happen.
2. How to make Biscoff buttercream frosting
It's not the typical American frosting. It tastes so much butter and the texture is amazing! The first part of this process is making pastry cream. After that, you can quickly turn it into mousseline cream aka German buttercream.
Follow these steps to make the pastry cream:
- In a medium bowl, use a hand whisk to mix the egg yolk and sugar for about 1-2 minutes until it looks slightly fluffy.
- Add the corn starch, flour, and vanilla. Mix them well until it looks like a smooth paste. Set aside.
- Grab a saucepan and use it to simmer the milk over medium heat. It needs to be only simmering, not boiling.
- Gradually, pour the warm milk into the paste-like mixture while vigorously whisking them.
- Pour the mixture into the saucepan and simmer over medium heat. Keep whisking while cooking it. It should take several minutes until it thickens.
- Strain the cooked mixture to avoid any lumps.
- Gradually, add the soft butter to the cream. Mix well with a rubber spatula until well combined.
- Transfer the pastry cream to a shallow bowl. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it cool down.
When your pastry cream has reached room temperature, follow these steps:
- Grab the butter and make sure it's soft (not melted). It must not contain hard chunks
- Using your stand mixer (with a whisk attachment), cream the butter for a few minutes until it's fluffy.
- When your butter looks pale and creamy, mix in the Biscoff spread. Keep whisking.
- Then, gradually mix in the pastry cream. You can do this in 4 batches. Wait for the previous batch to combine and add the next one.
- Continue mixing for about 1-2 minutes until it becomes fluffy. Once it reaches a pipeable consistency, stop the mixer right away. Do not overmix as it can get runny.
- Transfer the mousseline cream to a piping bag and refrigerate it for about 30 minutes before piping for the best consistency.
💡 Top Tip: Temperature is super crucial when making this type of Biscoff buttercream. Both the butter and pastry cream must be at room temperature so they can mix properly.
3. How to assemble
Once the Lotus cake layers and the mousseline are ready, you can start assembling them. Follow these steps:
- Grab your kitchen scale and small bowls.
- Measure 200g of Biscoff buttercream and 100g of Biscoff spread. That's what you need in between layers 1-2 and layers 2-3 so overall you will need 400g of buttercream and 200g of spread
- Place the first sponge layer on your cake turntable. Then, pipe frosting around the sponge and fill the middle with Biscoff spread
- Stack on it the second cake layer and repeat this process
- Then, place the third cake layer on top
Please note that you should have frosting left to cover the outer part of the cake and to decorate.
💡 Top Tip: If at any point you feel that the frosting gets soft or the cake looks a bit unstable, refrigerate the cake and frosting for 30 minutes.
4. Decoration
Once your cake layers are stacked beautifully, it's time to decorate the outer part.
- Using the leftover Biscoff frosting, apply one layer of crumb coat on the cake, then chill it for 30 minutes
- Apply the final coating on the top and side as well, then again chill the cake for 30 minutes
- In the meantime, crush the Biscoff cookies into crumbs. Use them to coat the top of the cake and partly the side or according to your liking,
- Then, transfer the remaining mousseline cream into a piping bag (with a star nozzle tip) and use it to decorate the top of the cake.
At this point, your Lotus Biscoff cake should be ready! You can serve it immediately or you can keep it covered and refrigerated for 2-3 days!
💡 Top Tip: You can make a Biscoff drip cake as well, for that you will need to melt the cookie spread first
🎓 Expert tips
- For the cake layers, make sure that all ingredients are at room temperature so they can easily emulsify
- Avoid overmixing. Mix the dry ingredients and wet ingredients until just combined.
- Do not over-bake your cake layers as they can be dry instead of moist.
- For the cookie butter frosting, the temperature is super important. Make sure that the pastry cream and the butter are at room temperature already before mixing them together.
- This Lotus Biscoff cake recipe uses Lotus Biscoff spread in the buttercream mixture. However, you can get creative and replace the Biscoff spread with another flavoring agent such as Nutella or Hazelnut paste. Just be careful and try to adjust the sugar during the mixing process.
- Biscoff cookie crumbs for the decoration can be made in a ziplock bag using a rolling pin or in the food processor
🥣 Equipment notes
This Lotus Biscoff cake is pretty easy to make. You don't need fancy baking equipment. However, please try your best to gather these easy-to-find baking tools:
Digital scale: It's better than measuring cups to achieve precise measurements in baking.
Digital oven thermometer: Use this to help you find out the actual temperature of your oven.
Electric hand mixer: You will need this to cream the butter easily.
Rubber spatula: super useful to fold in the ingredients without overmixing. It also helps with transferring the batter into the baking pan or the buttercream into the piping bag.
6-inch/15 cm round cake pans: We need three layers of sponge cake in this recipe. So, we will need three baking pans. Brush the inside of the pan with melted butter or oil, then line them with parchment paper. I use cake pans with a 6-inch diameter. You can use smaller or bigger pans but remember to divide the batter equally and adjust the baking time and temperature accordingly.
Cake turntable: Build your beautiful Lotus cake on top of this. It's easy to rotate so you can decorate various angles of your cake without moving around the kitchen.
Offset spatula: Use this to help you apply the frosting to the cake. It's super helpful to spread and smooth the cookie butter buttercream onto the cake layers.
Piping bag and French star nozzle tip: Use them together to decorate your Lotus cake with Biscoff-flavored frosting.
❓Recipe FAQs
Lotus Biscoff cake layer is made of easy-to-find ingredients that are regularly used to make classic sponge cake such as flour, egg, milk, butter, etc. However, it also incorporates cinnamon in the batter so it complements the original Biscoff flavor. The frosting of this Lotus Biscoff cake is made similarly to the German buttercream except that there's Biscoff spread added to the mixture.
Yes, of course, you can! Please check this article for a cake pan converter
Most probably you can by replacing the flour with gluten-free flour, however, most probably you will need to slightly reformulate the recipe. Unfortunately, I am not able to provide substitute measurements for you.
Lotus Biscoff has a unique flavor. It has a combination of sweetness, caramel flavor, and spicy flavor. Besides, it's made with natural ingredients. The Biscoff spread itself is labeled as vegan.
It's a complex pack of flavors! It is creamy, buttery, sweet, and caramelly with wonderful Fall spice afternotes! The texture is moist and soft which makes everything tastes even better!
Cover the cake and keep it in the fridge for about 2-3 days. Cover the cake so it does not absorb any smell or moisture from the fridge.
I do not recommend freezing this cake, although you can easily freeze the baked brown sugar sponge cake layers and whip up the frosting when you need it.
✨ More Biscoff recipes
Make sure to try my Biscoff recipes collection!
🧁 More Cake Recipes
Biscoff Cake
Equipment
Ingredients
For the brown sugar sponge cakes
- 167 g (¾ cups) Unsalted butter room temperature
- 75 g (⅓ cups) Granulated sugar
- 75 g (⅓ cups) Brown sugar
- 2 Eggs room temperature
- 167 g (1⅓ cups) All purpose
- ¼ taspoon Salt
- 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
- 1½ teaspoon Baking powder
- 40 g (2½ tablespoon) Whole milk room temperature
For the Biscoff Buttercream (Crème Mousseline)
- 750 g (3 cups) Whole milk
- 150 g (¾ cups) Granulated sugar
- 90 g (⅓ cups) Egg yolk approx. yolk of 2 eggs
- 37 g (⅓ cups) Corn starch
- 37 g (⅓ cups) All purpose flour
- 75 g (⅓ cups) Unsalted butter room temperature, 82% fat content - will be used while making the pastry cream
- 185 g (¾ cups) Biscoff spread store bough or homemade
- 225 g (1 cups) Unsalted butter room temperature, 82% fat content - will be used while making the butter cream
For Assembling
- 200 g (1 cups) Biscoff spread 100g per layer
- Biscoff cookie crumbs
US customary cup measurement is an indicative figure only. Measure the ingredients with a digital scale by weight (gram). Baking is art but also science which requires precision and accuracy.
Instructions
Make the Biscoff Mousseline cream (German buttercream)
Pastry cream
- In a large enough bowl with the help of a Hand whisk, mix together sugar and egg yolk until slightly fluffy for about 1-2 minutes
- Mix in corn starch and flour until throughly incorporated and have a smooth paste
- Bring milk to simmering in a saucepan on medium heat. Make sure it is simmering but not crazy boiling, see my tips above
- Pour the warm milk over the egg yolk mixture slowly while whisking vigorously with a Hand whisk.
- Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and cook on medium heat for a few minutes until it thickens. Concretely it is approximately 1 min after the first boil. It might get lumpy first, don't worry just keep whisking and the cream will get smooth and glossy
- If in doubt, strain the pastry cream for a lump-free, creamy end result
- Add in room temperature soft butter and mix with a Rubber spatula until completely incorporated. It is worth adding the butter in 3 stages and mixing well after each addition
- Place the cream into a shallow bowl and cover the entire surface with plastic wrap to avoid skin forming on top. Let it cool to room temperature
Make the Biscoff mousseline cream (German buttercream)
- Crème mousseline can be made with room temp pastry cream, room temp butter, and Biscoff spread. Make sure everything is at room temp otherwise the mixture might curdle
- Whip room temp butter first for 1-2 minutes, then mix in Biscoff spread
- Start adding in the room temp pastry cream in 4 stages until cream reaches a stable yet fluffy texture. Do not over whip the mixture as it can become runny
- Place the cream into the fridge for half an hour while preparing the cake layers
Cake layers
- Heat oven to 175 C / 347°F (no fan)
- Cream room temperature butter and sugar together in a stand mixer until pale and fluffy then whip the eggs in, one at a time
- Sift flour, salt, and baking powder together, this is the “dry ingredients” and the room temp milk is your wet ingredient
- Fold wet and dry ingredients with the butter-sugar mixture in the following order: wet, dry, wet, dry.
- Divide the cake batter between the 3 baking pans equally using a digital scale.
- Bake them at 175 C / 347°F (no fan) for 20 min or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Let them cool on a cooling rack before frosting.
Assembling
- Measure the frosting: 200g Biscoff buttercream and 100g Biscoff spread in between each layer
- Start to build up the layers from the bottom to the top. Once the last cake layer is placed, chill the cake for a minimum of 30 minutes
- If at any point the frosting gets soft or the cake gets unstable, place it into the fridge to chill then only after continue.
- Crumb coat the cake with a thin layer of frosting and then chill the cake again for another 30 minutes before the final coating and decorating
Decoration
- Cover the cake completely on the top and lightly on the sides with the Biscoff crumbs
- Then, move the remainign frosting into a piping bag and decorate top of the Biscoff cake using a star nozzle tip
- Store in the fridge for 2-3 days
Notes
- Use always unsalted butter in dessert recipes, but make sure you add the salt stated in the recipe as that will balance the sweetness
- Use a combination of white and (light or dark) brown sugar for the best texture and beautiful butterscotch flavor
- The egg, butter, and milk should be used at room temperature to make the cupcakes
- Use full-fat milk and high-quality butter when making the Biscoff buttercream
- If you cannot access Biscoff spread, try my homemade Biscoff butter recipe
- Digital scale is required for a consistent, happy baking experience:)
- Always pre-heat your oven and consider using a digital oven thermometer for the best results
- Each oven is different so you might need to adjust the baking time slightly
- Do not overbake the cake layers as that can result in a dry texture
- It is very important that while whipping up the Biscoff frosting, both the pastry cream as well as the butter is at room temperature
- If at any point during the assembling process the cake frosting or the cake layers are soft, refrigerate them for 30 minutes before continuing
Gavin
This looks fantastic. I made your Ferrero Rocher cake a couple of weeks ago and it was superb (a huge hit among my guests!).
There's no reason not to make the sponge cakes a day before making the mousseline cream and chill them, is there? That would suit my schedule a bit more. Or is it preferable to do it all at once (the entire cake will be consumed within 24 hours of me making the mousseline)?
Katalin Nagy
Lovely to hear that you liked the Ferrero Rocher cake, you will love this too!
You could make the sponge earlier but once you make the cream, I suggest assembling immediately while the cream is softer. Then, you can serve the cake within a few hours up to a day.
Mya
I love Biscoff and this is my new favorite cake! Your frosting is so special, I almost ate all of it before even frosting the cake 🙂
Tom
I have checked 10 other Biscoff Cake recipes but this sounded the most delicious one with that interesting frosting I have never heard of before (cooked pastry cream enriched with butter and Biscoff spread). I am so glad I chose this recipe, it is even more delicious than I could ever imagined!!! Thank you