Mile-High Celebration Cake for a Crowd

Three 9-by-13 chocolate sheet cakes stacked vertically with raspberry jam and orange marmalade between the layers, then slathered in a rich mocha cream cheese buttercream. This is a cake built for sheet-cake crowds (graduation parties, family reunions, office birthdays) when a single round layer cake won’t feed the room.

Freezing the baked cakes first is the stacking trick. Frozen cake is rigid and crumbs less, which makes a three-layer assembly possible without the bottom layers buckling or bleeding. Start with frozen cakes and work fast while they’re still firm.

The mocha buttercream has double cream cheese AND butter, which gives it body and tang where most store-bought frostings go greasy. Two tablespoons of instant coffee and a half cup of cocoa power push it into mocha territory without making it too chocolate-heavy for the fruit fillings to come through.

Pro Tips

• Make the cake layers up to a week ahead and freeze wrapped in foil. This isn’t just convenient, it’s the structural move that makes the stack work.
• Use seedless raspberry jam, not preserves with whole berries. Seeds distract and berries collapse under layer weight.
• Spread jam and marmalade to within a half inch of the edges. Pushed to the very edge, they squeeze out when the next layer goes on.
• Crumb-coat first with a thin layer of buttercream, chill 20 minutes, then apply the final thick coat. A crumb coat is the difference between a professional-looking cake and a speckled one.

Variations

• Swap orange marmalade for apricot or fig jam for a different fruit balance.
• Add a tablespoon of Chambord or Cointreau to the buttercream for a boozy grown-up edge.
• Decorate with chocolate-dipped strawberries and edible fresh flowers as the recipe suggests for genuinely spectacular photographs.