One of the very first things I wanted to do after moving back was trying out some cupcake recipes – in a decent kitchen (aka my mom’s)! So I chose two recipes, one for the classic Red Velvet Cupcakes and one for more fancy Tiramisu Cupcakes. I wasn’t very happy with the Red Velvet ones, since they turned out quite – well, Brown Velvet actually because of the cocoa, and using only baking soda and no baking powder apparently wasn’t a good choice. Add a cream cheese butter cream that goes all flaky and you end up with a weird little cupcake. I won’t share the recipe with you, but I will share the pictures I took throughout the whole thing.
Now, the Tiramisu cupcakes are a whole different story. They might not be the obvious choice for a cupcake cafe since they are quite labor intense, but the outcome was incredibly delicious!
Recipe: Tiramisu Cupcakes
makes 9 – 12
Ingredients
- 5/8 (80g) cups cake flour
3/8 tsp (1.7g) baking powder
1/4 tsp (1.5g) coarse salt
1/8 cup (30ml) milk
1/2 vanilla bean, halved length-wise, seeds scraped and reserved
2 tbsp (1/4 stick or 30g) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large whole eggs plus 1 egg yolk, room temperature
1/2 cup (100g) sugar
cocoa powder for dustingCoffee-Marsala-Syrup
1/6 cup (40ml) hot strong coffee or espresso
1/2 ounce (15ml) Marsala
1/8 cup (25g) sugarMascarpone Frosting
1/2 cup (120g) heavy cream
4 ounces (115g) Mascarpone cheese
1/4 cup (30g) powdered sugar
Instructions
Preheat oven to 325°F/160°C. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Heat milk and vanilla-bean pod and seeds in a saucepan over medium until bubbles appear. Remove from heat, whisk in butter until melted, let stand for 15 minutes. Strain through a fine sieve and discard pod.
With an electric mixer whisk together whole eggs, egg yolk and sugar. Heat in a double boiler and keep whisking until sugar is dissolved and mixture is warm. Remove bowl from heat and mix again until mixture is fluffy, pale yellow and thick.
Fold flour mixture into egg mixture in three batches; stir 1/2 cup batter into strained vanilla milk, then fold mixture into the remaining batter.
Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until centers are completely set and edges are light golden brown, about 20 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes.
To finish, brush tops evenly with coffee-marsala syrup (just stir together the ingredients); repeat until all syrup has been used. For the frosting whisk heavy cream until stiff. In a separate bowl whisk together mascarpone and powdered sugar, then fold whipped cream into mascarpone mix. Dollop frosting onto cupcakes; refrigerate up to overnight in airtight containers. Dust generously with cocoa powder just before serving.
