Tiramisu Cupcakes

weekly cupcake 7 Responses »
Apr 192010

Mmmmmmmm, tiramisu. I LOVE tiramisu. I once worked at an Italian restaurant and I was in charge of plating the desserts, among other things. I really enjoyed it when there was some tiramisu left that wasn’t big enough to serve a paying customer – because then I got to eat it. Only good thing about working in a restaurant. Anyway, I used to see them make it all the time but for some reason never bothered to try my hand at it. When I saw that good ol’ Martha Stewart had a cupcake version I knew I had make them.

I’ve never made lady fingers but after the cupcakes were made I googled for a recipe. It seems like these cupcakes are pretty similar to lady fingers, although they are different. Lots of eggs for sure. It never ceases to amaze me how eggs can change consistency and appearance with just lots of beating.

I don’t have a whole lot of pictures because my attic is currently being renovated into actual living space. Which means I have two extra adults in my house, my mom and dad. Which means I have two extra adults going in and out of my kitchen. My kitchen is tiny, you have two people in there and it’s crowded.

I think at the Italian restaurant I worked they used brandy in their coffee syrup, but Martha’s recipe calls for Marsala wine. Luckily Marsala wine is cheap. There was this bottle for $4.99 and one other one for $1.50 more. And from this big bottle I only needed 1oz. No idea what I’ll do with the rest. My mom said I needed to learn how to make chicken Marsala. (Anyone have a tried and true recipe they’d like to share?) Also, I was lucky I brewed my espresso before my mom broke my carafe. She’s lucky I love her so much ;-)

Martha says to brush on the coffee-Marsala syrup with a brush until it’s all gone. I don’t have a brush so I used a 1/2 teaspoon. The tops became very sticky, so I can’t help but think if you did use a brush your brush would have cupcake crumbs all in it. I used 1.5 teaspoon of the syrup in each cupcake and there was some still left over. I decided NOT to use all the syrup because I was certain the cupcakes were going to be loaded with syrup. Turns out once again I was wrong and Martha was right. Some of the cupcakes that were eaten after dinner didn’t have any of the syrup in the middle/bottom part of the cupcake, just right at the top.

While the cupcakes were soaking up the syrup for 30 minutes I got out the mascarpone cheese so it came to room temperature and went for a small walk.

Besides watching them make tiramisu at the restaurant I hadn’t ever used or seen mascarpone cheese before. It’s weird stuff, and if you’re worried about your arteries or cholesterol you probably shouldn’t even touch it. 60 calories per serving, 60 calories from fat. My mom said it’s basically sweet fat. And you add it to whipped heavy cream. Holy. Cow. No wonder it tastes so good. I was thinking of not sending them to my husband’s work and leaving them home for us to eat but my mom said to get them out of the house, she didn’t want to eat anymore.

They really are good though. They taste just like tiramisu, just in cute, easy to eat cupcake form. Thanks Martha!!

Tiramisu Cupcake Recipe:

  • 1 1/4 cups cake flour (not self-rising), sifted
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise, seeds scraped and reserved (I used regular vanilla extract)
  • 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into pieces
  • 3 large whole eggs plus 3 egg yolks, room temperature
  • 1 cup sugar
  • Coffee-Marsala Syrup
  • Mascarpone Frosting
  • Unsweetened cocoa powder, for dusting
  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Sift together cake flour, baking powder, and salt. Heat milk and vanilla-bean pod and seeds in a small saucepan over medium heat just until bubbles appear around the edge. Remove from heat. Whisk in butter until melted, and let stand 15 minutes. Strain milk mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl, and discard vanilla-bean pod.
  2. With an electric mixer on medium speed, whisk together whole eggs, yolks, and sugar. Set mixing bowl over a pan of simmering water, and whisk by hand until sugar is dissolved and mixture is warm, about 6 minutes. Remove bowl from heat. With an electric mixer on high speed, whisk until mixture is fluffy, pale yellow, and thick enough to hold a ribbon on the surface for several seconds when whisk is lifted.
  3. Gently but thoroughly fold flour mixture into the egg mixture in three batches; stir 1/2 cup batter into the strained milk mixture to thicken, then fold milk mixture into the remaining batter until just combined.
  4. 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.
  5. To finish, brush tops of cupcakes evenly with coffee-marsala syrup; repeat until all syrup has been used. Allow cupcakes to absorb liquid 30 minutes. Dollop frosting onto cupcakes; refrigerate up to overnight in airtight containers. Dust generously with cocoa powder just before serving.

source

Coffee-Marsala Syrup:

  • 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon freshly brewed very strong coffee (or espresso)
  • 1 ounce marsala
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  1. Stir together coffee, marsala, and sugar until sugar is dissolved. Let cool.

source

Mascarpone Frosting:

  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 8 ounces mascarpone cheese, room temperature
  • 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
  1. With an electric mixer on medium speed, whisk heavy cream until stiff peaks form (be careful not to overbeat, or cream will be grainy). In another bowl, whisk together mascarpone and confectioners’ sugar until smooth. Gently fold whipped cream into mascarpone mixture until completely incorporated. Use immediately.

source

Posted by Kristen at 10:26 am Tagged with: , , , ,

Coconut cupcakes with coconut buttercream

holiday themed cupcakes, weekly cupcake 17 Responses »
Mar 282010

These cupcakes? A coconut lover’s heaven! There is ground coconut and coconut milk in the cake. There is coconut extract in the butter cream and topped with toasted coconut. Go on and drool, they are DELISH!

I got this recipe from Martha Stewart’s cupcake cookbook. I got the book from the library because I wasn’t sure I’d like it despite all the good reviews. Because you see…I kind of hate Martha. (Yes, we’re on a first name basis) I used to watch her show, Martha Stewart Living, all the time growing up when it was on Saturday or Sunday afternoons. Basically I always thought she seemed like a snotty person who did everything the hard way. My thoughts on her being snotty were confirmed when I heard all her staff quit before taping of a new season started. I have no idea if that was just rumor, but I’ll continue to take it as the truth. But this cookbook? It’s like cupcake smut. Beautiful pictures with every recipe. This is the first recipe I’ve made but they all seem like lovely recipes. I will be buying a copy.

As you can see from the first picture I didn’t go with just copying Martha’s recipe. I wanted something Easter and/or Spring themed. I saw these cupcakes on Flickr and decided to do that.

Martha calls for you to pulse the coconut in a processor until it’s finely ground. Well I don’t have a processor, just a blender. I’m sure Martha would look at my “ground” coconut and then slap my face for not following her directions.

Sorry Martha.

With all the butter and coconut milk in this recipe I should have figured that perhaps my very pretty cupcake liners that were NOT marked as grease resistant wouldn’t be so pretty after I had cooked my cupcakes. I’m kind of disappointed because they were really pretty:

But after they looked like this:

You can’t see the chick on the bottom at all. Oh well. They tasted really good and I guess that’s all that matters. Right?

While the cupcakes were cooling I went about toasting my coconut. I have never toasted coconut before. One recipe online says 300°F for 30-40 minutes. Another recipe said 325°F and cook until the coconut is as brown as you want it. Well that really helps. I went with 300 degrees. Checked once and the coconut wasn’t brown at all. Checked again and it was very very toasted. There seems to be a very fine line between toasted and burned when it comes to coconut, just an FYI. It also took no where near as long as 30 minutes to toast.

I put the coconut and the mini Cadbury eggs in small bowls so I could do a little assembly line. Take my advice and use a much larger bowl for the coconut then you think you need because you get a lot of spillage.

Just as Martha suggests in the recipe I used a small offset spatula to put my frosting on. I did not however use the seven-minute frosting she suggests. And I’m going to give Martha some credit here and say I probably should have listened to her. Butter cream isn’t a real sticky frosting making it hard to get the coconut to stay on top. I couldn’t just sprinkle some on. This was my method:

I rolled the cupcake around in the bowl using a small amount of force to get the coconut to embed into and stick onto the butter cream.

Another snag I ran into was how to get the mini Cadbury eggs to stick on. I ended up putting a tiny dab of frosting on each and pressing it into the coconut. So far none have fallen off. Although I don’t have much faith of them staying on during my husband’s 20 minute drive to work. They really are pretty though, little birds’ nests of coconut heaven!

Cupcake Recipe:

  • 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup packed sweetened shredded coconut
  • 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1 1/3 cups sugar
  • 2 large whole eggs plus 2 egg whites, room temperature
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons purse vanilla extract
  • 3/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Pulse shredded coconut in a food processor until finely ground, and whisk into flour mixture.

2. With and electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Gradually beat in whole eggs, whites and vanilla, scrapping down sides of bowl as needed. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of coconut milk, and beating until combined after each.

3. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling eat three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in centers come out clean, about 20 minutes. Remove from oven; turn out cupcakes onto wire racks and let cool completely. cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature , or freeze up to 2 months, in airtight containers.

4. To finish, use a small offset spatula to spread a generous dome of frosting onto each cupcake, and, if desired, garnish with flaked coconut (press gently to adhere). Cupcakes are best eaten the day they’re frosted; store at room temperature until ready to serve.

Source: Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes

Butter cream recipe

  • 2 sticks butter
  • 1-2 teaspoons coconut extract
  • around 32ozs of powdered sugar
  • 3-4 tablespoons cream or milk (or coconut milk)

Cream butter in small bowl. Beat in sugar and coconut extract. Add milk until frosting reaches desired consistency. If too thick add more milk, if too thin add more sugar.

Posted by Kristen at 11:13 pm Tagged with: , , , , , ,
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