It's funny how I never thought about baking cupcakes for ANY reason. I always figured they were too much work, but now that I've mastered the skill of gourmet cupcakes, I will never purchase store-bought ever again.
Sorry Albertson's...
While I was trolling the Information Super Highway for tasty treats to make, I stumbled upon Martha Stewart's recipe for Tiramisu Cupcakes. I won't even go into how DEEP my love affair with Tiramisu goes, but TRUST ME...it's pretty deep. The idea of a CUPCAKE version excited me so much that I ran out immediately to purchase supplies.
Before I prepared myself mentally to dig into this recipe, I decided to check on a few reviews first. I ran across one at A Chef's Daughter and her review left me weary. Then I went over to Mexican Chocolate Lore and More and decided to make some changes of my own to the original recipe.
The results?
MAGNIFICENT!
I didn't have a whole vanilla bean as the recipe calls for, so I substituted with vanilla extract (which was fine). I also didn't have the Marsala wine for the coffee syrup it calls for...and I wasn't about to brew only a half cup of coffee...so I used instant and made it EXTRA strong (the equivalent of 2 STRONG cups of coffee in a half cup of water) and I added Kahlua. I also added Kahlua to the Marscapone Frosting mixture because you know how much I love to add alcohol to frosting if I can!
A friend came by after work (one of my official food tasters) and she liked it so much I thought she was gonna have a heart attack and fall out in my dining room! She was twitching and hopping all over the place, raving about how good it was! I just LOVE to hear that sort of thing!
Can you see how BLACK that coffee is? It stained my cup! And let me just tell you, this was an exhausting process. Martha's recipe instructs you to brush the cupcakes with the liquid until the liquid is GONE.
::blank stare::
That's almost 3/4 cup of liquid...so I brushed...
...and brushed...
...until I finally said, "Screw it!" and poked some more holes! I place the cookie sheet underneath the rack, whipped out a spoon and started pouring the liquid over the cupcakes. That entire process took me at LEAST 30 minutes.
Then I let them sit for about 30 minutes to allow the liquid to soak thru the bottom of the cupcakes. While I waited for that to happen, I whipped up some heavy cream, marscapone, confectioner's sugar and a dash of Kahlua...ok maybe a little more than a dash...lol.
And to finish it off, I shook a little cocoa powder over the top. I'm sure there's a better way to do that, but I was pressed for time seeing how brushing the coffee syrup took so doggone long that it ran into my dinner preparation time!
The final product...
I personally think this is one of my BEST finds! Even with a little tweaking! And poking holes DEFINITELY did the job! And yes, it DOES taste as good as it looks!
