• Preheat oven to 375°F. and generously grease and flour a 10x15 jelly roll pan or any sheet pan you have.  Lightly spray with cooking spray and line with parchment paper so that you have a bit of an edge sticking up around all sides of the pan. Spray paper lightly with cooking spray.  For cakettes, you will be filling the sheet pan almost to the top of the pan so that a nice tall sheet cake bakes up. You may have more batter than you need; just pour off a cupcake or two. It will depend on your sheet cake size. A 10-15 will allow you to cut out about 20-24 or more 2 1/4"-2 ½"cakettes. You can cut any size you like but these fit nicely into the pretty, sturdy cups pictured. I lined my pretty cups with standard size cupcake liners to insure no grease showed through as I assembled the cakettes. If baking as a layer cake, use 2-8" rounds.

   In a bowl of a stand mixer beat together sugar, shortening, and butter until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. In another bowl , sift together flour, baking soda, and salt. Beat flour mixture into egg mixture in 2 batches alternately with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour mixture, until combined. Add vanilla.  In another clean mixer bowl, beat egg whites in until they just hold stiff peaks. Fold into batter gently but thoroughly.

   Spread batter into sheet pan or round pans, smoothing tops, and bake until a tester comes out clean, about 30 minutes for layers and about 20 minutes for sheet cake.  Cool cakes in pans on racks 10 minutes and then invert onto racks to cool completely.  

soaking syrup

• Mix all soaking syrup ingredients into a small, heavy saucepan. Bring to a low boil over medium high heat and reduce by about half, stirring occasionally. Cool syrup completely.

frosting

• In a stand mixer, beat cream cheese and butter in large bowl until light. Gradually add sugar and beat until fluffy. Add Marsala and vanilla and beat until well blended.  Add small amounts of cream until spreadable consistency is reached. Cover and let stand at room temperature up to 1 hour.
• assembly
• For cakettes, cut out rounds (I used a small 2 1/4"-2 ½" cutter. Then cut rounds in half, horizontally. Line sturdy cups with cupcake liners. Press one cake piece down inside cup. Brush with syrup. Sprinkle with chocolate; dollop a bit of Italian Cream frosting. Top with another cake, brush with syrup, sprinkle with chocolate, dollop with frosting, finish with another sprinkling of chocolate.