Tiramisu, the perennial “pick me up” Italian dessert, is today’s gluten free Friday cupcake inspiration. These Tiramisu Cupcakes are kind of traditional – a coffee cupcake, coffee syrup, and Marsala mascarpone topping, all dusted with dark cocoa powder… but now you don’t need to eat it with a spoon!
Tiramisu Cupcakes – just made
I adapted this recipe from the Tiny Tiramisu recipe in one of my Marie Claire cookbooks: Food + Drink. I often make them for dessert bites at cocktail parties… They are just scrummy!
Tiramisu Cupcakes – the next day 🙂
I have to say though that I personally don’t love this recipe with gluten free flour. Somehow the riceyness of the flour comes out in combination with the coffee flavour. While you gluten intolerants will still love them (I know this because NONE of my taste testers had a problem with the ricey flavour), I would recommend to everyone else to make these with regular flour!
Tiramisu Cupcakes – the next day 🙂
Tiramisu Cupcakes
Makes 12 – you can make all the components 2 days ahead of time, assemble them the day before serving.
Coffee Cupcakes
ingredients
150g butter
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 cups Flour (gluten free if desired)
1/3 cup ground almonds
3 tsp baking powder
90mL strong black coffee
mixing
Line a 12 hole muffin pan with cupcake cases and spray with non-stick spray.
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and beat on low speed until combined. Increase the mixer speed to high and beat until light and fluffy. Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases, smooth the tops, and bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 28 minutes or until the cakes stop “whispering” (the bubbling noise you can hear when you listen to them closely). Let the cupcakes cool on a wire rack.
When cold, slice the tops off the cupcakes and discard. Spoon two tablespoons of coffee syrup over each cupcake, trying to get syrup over the whole surface. Load the mascarpone topping into a large piping bag fitted with a 7mm round nozzle, and pipe small peaks all over the surface of each cupcake (about 40 grams of topping per cupcake). To get a beautiful crown shape with the topping, pipe a round peak in the middle, eight peaks around the outside, five peaks in the groove between the central peak and the outer peaks, and one peak directly on top of the central peak. Sprinkle the cupcakes liberally with cocoa powder.
Piping the topping onto the cupcakes
Dusting the cupcakes
All done and dusted!
The cupcakes are best served after having been refrigerated for several hours or overnight.
Coffee Syrup
ingredients
3/4 cup strong black coffee
1/2 cup coffee liqueur such as Tia Maria or Kahlua
3 tbsp sugar
mixing
Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Simmer five minutes, then let cool.
Mascarpone Marsala Topping
ingredients
2 egg yolks
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 cup Marsala
250g mascarpone
100g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
about 2 tbsp good quality dark cocoa powder, for dusting
mixing
Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together in a medium heat proof bowl, then whisk in the Marsala. Place the bowl over a saucepan filled with a little water, and place the saucepan over a medium heat until the water starts simmering, continuing to whisk the mixture as the water heats up. The mixture will foam up and approximately triple in volume. When the mixture has reached this stage, remove from the heat and chill the mixture until cold.
Foamy Marsala mixture
Fold through the mascarpone, by adding about half a cup of the foam mixture to the mascarpone and mixing to lighten it, then fold all the mascarpone into the foam. Chill.
When the mixture is cold, add half the cool melted butter and whisk until smooth. Repeat with the rest of the butter, and whip until the topping holds peaks (this should happen almost immediately. If it doesn’t chill the mixture again – and if that doesn’t work add another 25g or so of cooled melted butter).
Enjoy!xxx
