Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, grease and flour three 8 inch x 2 inch round cake pans.

In a medium sized bowl, add the flour, baking powder, and salt. Whisk to blend for 30 seconds. Set aside.

In another bowl or measuring cup, combine the sour cream, milk, instant espresso granules, and vanilla.

In the bowl of your mixer, beat the softened butter until smooth. Gradually add the sugar and beat on medium speed for 3-5 minutes until fluffy and lightened in color.

Add the eggs one at a time, mixing until the yellow of the yolk disappears.

Add the flour mixture and the sour cream mixture alternately, beginning and ending with the flour mixture (3 additions of dry ingredients, 2 of wet).

Mix until combined and smooth, do not mix above medium speed or over-mix.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25-28 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. Let the cakes cool 5-10 minutes, then turn out.

Makes 7 cups batter. The recipe works well for cupcakes.

Mix coffee, Kahlua and powdered sugar and set aside to cool.

First,  Place a bowl and the whisk attachment or beaters if using a hand mixer in the freezer about 10 minutes.  This will help in whipping the heavy cream.

Dissolve the espresso powder in ¼ cup heavy cream.

In the bowl of your mixer, add the softened mascarpone, powdered sugar, vanilla and dissolved espresso powder.  Cover the bowl with a towel  to avoid a cloud of powdered sugar. 

Begin mixing on low speed gradually increasing the speed to medium until the mixture is combined and smooth.  Set this aside while  you whip the heavy cream to stiff peak stage. Stiff peak stage is when you raise the beater, the cream will form a peak standing straight up or the tip will curl over only slightly. Be careful not to over beat.

Fold the whipped cream into the mascarpone mixture.  

Place espresso cake layer on the pedestal or cake base

Brush espresso syrup over the cake layer.

Apply Mascarpone filling (staying about ¼ inch from the edge of the cake layer.

Repeat for the other layers

If settling the cake, wrap the tier in plastic wrap and place a pan or book on top while chilling the cake in the refrigerator for a few hours. Frosting needs to be refrigerated as well.

When ready to decorate, crumb coat the cake with a thin layer of mascarpone frosting and follow with the final coat of frosting.

Dust the top with cocoa (we tapped it through a sifter). Add border and piping around the top to your liking. (We used an 8B star tip for the top, and a tip 21 for the shell border around the base. We also topped each piped star with a Ghirardelli dark chocolate chip (I like these because they are a little larger & flatter than most chocolate chips).