Tuesday, June 3, 2008

tiramisu cupcakes

so every now and then a girl wants to treat her friends but just doesn't have the time to do things from scratch. so i cheated with a box of white cake mix. to make a coffee flavoured cake, prepare cake mix as instructed on the box but substitute the water with double strength brewed and chilled coffee. bake the cupcakes and let cool completely.

make room for filling
once cupcakes have COMPLETELY cooled (don't go hacking into warm cupcakes!!). i found it easiest to insert a paring knife in at 45 degree angel and rotate the cupcake around the knife. i went to close to the edge on a few of the cakes and the seam didn't get covered by the whipped cream.


drizzle bottoms with coffee
i used a teaspoon but i really would have preferred a pastry brush. that will be the next item i will add to my baking hardware.


put in the filling
i made way, waaaaayyyy too much mascarpone cream because there was only a really big tub at the grocery store but mostly because i had a brain fart and didn't realize that i only need approximately 24 tablespoons of filling.

anyway, with a 500ml tub of mascarpone, i added six egg yolks, 3/4 cup of white sugar, and about 1/4 cup of frangelico.


replace tops
i put a little too much filling into some of the cakes so the filling spilled out. it didn't really matter for all of them but i didn't like the way the finished product looked for the ones that i had cut too close to the edge.


pipe whipped cream
i whipped 750ml of heavy cream with 3tbsp of cream of tartar to stabilized it and sweetened it up with 3/4 cup of sugar.


dust with coco
i was a little heavy handed with the dusting. i wanted to give them all an even cover but there were some bare spots which caused me to over dust others on the second go around.


my first filled cupcake. the coffee drizzled made the cupcakes very moist but also very soft. these were a bit messy to eat because the tops didn't really "stick" to the bottoms and the whipped cream gets all over your nose if you try to take a bite out of a cupcake from top to bottom. these were really easy to make and i'm sure i will but i'm going to try a few more filled cupcakes first.