Fancy Pants Tiramisu Cupcakes

Oh yea. These were ultimate. We have a local town that has a strong Greek population and the downtown area, which is lovely and right on the water, has some fantastic restaurants. I got some tiramisu from a bakery and it was absolutely heavenly. I thought, "I MUST make this into a cupcake."
It's definitely been done before, so I'm not a cupcake pioneer on this one. I adapted a Martha Stewart recipe to suit my needs.

For the cakes, I used the Amy Sedaris Vanilla cupcake recipe:

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 1/4 cups milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Add in the eggs, two teaspoons vanilla, salt and baking powder. Add flour and milk in batches, starting and ending with flour. Stir until batter is smooth and satiny.
3. Fill paper-lined muffin tins with batter. Bake at 375° for 18- 20 minutes.

*I remembered that the cupcakes came out a little well-done when I used this recipe before, but I thought that was a good thing since I'd be soaking them. Otherwise, I would probably reduce the temp to about 350 if just making the cakes and not soaking them.

I LOVE these wrappers! I snatched them up at Joann Fabrics during a trip with my mom. They ended up being perfect for these cupcakes in a way I hadn't anticipated after I frosted (well, more like topped) them. But you can see how the edges are a little browned and you can tell they are well-done by the color coming through the wrapper...

For the soak:

I used a variation of the coffee-marsala soak that Martha's recipe calls for. I have marsala wine, but the cooking kind, so it has a higher salt content which is less than desireable with cupcakes. So I just brewed the crap out of the boldest coffee I could find in a small amount (no longer a coffee drinker because I'm very sensitive to caffeine). I then added some rum and french vanilla Kahlua and boiled it to reduce it a little. I didn't want it to be too thick because I wanted it to soak instead of glaze, but not too thin so the cakes didn't get really soggy. I wanted the soak to penetrate pretty far into the cupcakes too so I had to get creative with my soaking. I started by poking holes with a toothpick. I also have a filling tip that I used by poking it into parts of the cupcake and spooning the liquid into the tip (no bag necessary) until it soaked all the way in. Worked out pretty well because I didn't want to just spoon endless amounts of liquid on top of the cupcakes and have the whole top be soggy. I just wanted little sections of infused cake. I forgot to take a post-soak picture though :(   But if you look at the top picture, you can see the darker portion of the cake towards the right of it- that's the coffee soak.

For the frosting/topping, I used Martha's recipe:

1 cup heavy cream

8 ounces mascarpone cheese, room temperature

1/2 cup confectioner's sugar, sifted

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.

Read more at Marthastewart.com: Mascarpone Frosting - Martha Stewart Recipes

*This was actually my first attempt at whipping cream and it was scarier than I thought. I wasn't quite sure what "stiff peaks" would look like and I was scared of overbeating, but I may have overbeat it. I think I may just take some heavy cream one day and experiment with whipping it until I get a good feel for the process and what it really looks like when it's overbeaten. Anyways, I don't have a sifter (going on my xmas list for sure) so I just used the sugar from the box. That was probably why it turned out the way it did- not smooth and creamy like the way it looks in Martha's picture. It was a little thinner, and I don't want to say it was chunky or globby because the texture wasn't bad, it just wasn't smooth like in the picture. Didn't matter though, because it was super tasty. I dusted the top with the mandatory cocoa powder. Overall, the flavors meshed really well and tasted just like a cake-heavy tiramisu. I brought them in for a training at work and everyone liked them :)

You can see in this picture that the frosting/topping isn't as smooth as Martha's. No biggie, though. Next time I'll just be sure to sift the powdered sugar. But you can see how the fancy wrappers came in handy because they held the frosting on well since it was a little on the thin side (thinner than a piped buttercream for sure).