Tiramisu mousse

I'm not going to lie....the past few weeks have been a little bit hectic.  I packed (about 85% of) my apartment, moved downtown, unpacked (not nearly enough), spent the weekend in the 'burbs to celebrate my dad's 65th birthday (!!), came back to the city today, and packed up more of my old apartment.  Then, I came back downtown with a few bags in tow, and started unpacking some more!

Would I change any of it?  No, not a chance!  Except maybe I would've packed up my whole apartment before I moved so that I didn't have to go back and keep packing.  Like I'll have to do tomorrow after my 8-4 shift at work, and probably two days later, too.  :-(

So when my dad's 65th birthday fell TWO days after my move, I knew it was going to be hard to make a birthday treat for him.  I was definitely upset that I wouldn't be able to make anything, but it was highly unrealistic to think that I could.  I mean there was a good chance that my kitchen-aid wouldn't be unpacked, and that would be a travesty (in the end, as I'm sure you've figured out, it was unpacked on the first or second day).

But then something happened.  I came across a recipe.  It sounded good and it had easy in the title.  I read more and I was sold!  Easy Tiramisu Mousse sounded delicious.  And I thought it was perfect to pipe into small plastic cups and serve at the hors d'ourves party that my mom had planned for my dad.  The extensive, over the top, insane -- but also delicious -- hors d'ourves party that my mom had planned (there will be more on that in another post later, I promise!).

I was so amazed at how delicious and easy this was.  And it tasted just like tiramisu!  I highly recommend this recipe....as well as using a bigger serving vessel than I did.  I saw some people reach for seconds ;-)

Easy Tiramisu Mousse
From Crazy for Crust

Ingredients:

1.5 tsp instant coffee (like Starbucks Via or any other variety of instant coffee)
1/4 cup hot water
1 cup heavy whipping cream, cold
1.5 cups powdered sugar
8 oz mascarpone cheese or cream cheese (low fat cream cheese is fine, too) -- I used mascarpone
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 oz semi-sweet baking chocolate

Directions:

Put instant coffee into hot water and stir.
Let cool for 5 minutes, or longer.

Beat whipping cream until stiff peaks form.
Chill until ready to use.

Mix powdered sugar and mascarpone cheese with a hand mixer until smooth.
Mix in vanilla and 1 Tbsp of the coffee mixture.
Continue adding coffee until you reach your desired taste.  The original recipe blogger said she used the whole coffee mixture; I ended up using 2 Tbsp and loving the flavor.  

Fold whipped cream into coffee-mascarpone mixture gently.
Place the mousse in a gallon sized ziploc bag that is fitted with a large round or 1M tip (I used a piping bag with a star tip, because sometimes I'm a little crazy!).

Pipe a small amount in the bottom of your serving dishes.
Top the layer with a dusting of cocoa powder.
Continue layering mousse and cocoa powder in each dish.
Once you get to the top layer, grate the semisweet baking chocolate over the top of each dish (I used a little bit of cocoa powder and then went to town with the chocolate shavings).

Chill, covered, in the fridge until ready to be served.

Tiramisu (mini) cupcakes

I'm sure you've all heard by now that JulieBakes has it's own facebook page.  The other day, I posted a question on the facebook page asking you, the faithful JulieBakes readers, what I should bake this weekend.  The Red Velvet Cheesecake Cake (a two layer red velvet cake with a layer of cheesecake in the middle) was the quick forerunner, but these Tiramisu Cupcakes (mini, naturally) snuck in at the end and beat out the cake by a mere 4 votes.

I have to admit that I wanted to make BOTH the cake and the cupcakes, but I didn't want to bake a cake without an occasion or event to bring it to, and the BBQ that I'm going to on Memorial Day isn't the best venue to bring it to.  And I couldn't turn it into cupcakes, since the cheesecake layer would be hard to sandwich between two layers of cupcake.  So, thank you JulieBakes fans, for choosing these cupcakes instead.  But rest assured, I will make that cake!

By now you should also know that I love everything miniaturized.  Which means these tiramisu cupcakes are mini tiramisu cupcakes.  The orginal recipe says it makes 18 cupcakes, but I got 72 mini cupcakes (plus enough batter for about 6-8 more, but I didn't bake those last few).  When making mini cupcakes from a regular cupcake recipe, you usually need more toppings, since the surface area of the mini cupcakes is much greater than that of the regular sized cupcakes made from the same amount of batter.  Sorry for getting all scienc-y and math-y on you, but it's a good rule of thumb for your future baking endeavors (in this case, it comes to about 1.5 times the amount for the regular-sized cupcakes).

These cupcakes are like soft lady fingers.  Then they're topped with a little bit of a coffee-liquor syrup, covered in a mascarpone-whipped cream icing, and lastly sprinkled with some cocoa powder.  I thought about using some chocolate shavings, but it was too hot in my apartment and they would've melted.

These cupcakes are time and dish intensive - but well worth it, if you ask me.

Tiramisu (Mini) Cupcakes

For the Cupcakes:

1 1/4 cups cake flour (not self-rising), sifted
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp coarse salt
1/4 cup milk
1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise, seeds scraped and reserved
4 Tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into pieces
3 whole eggs plus 3 egg yolks, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar

For the Coffee-Marsala Syrup (you may or may not run out of this mixture - I doubled it and had a LOT extra):

1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon freshly brewed very strong coffee (or espresso)
1 ounce marsala (I used rum, since I didn't have marsala, and the last time I made tiramisu, it said to use rum; I halved the amount of alcohol as I assumed that rum is stronger than marsala)
1/4 cup granulated sugar

For the Mascarpone Frosting:

1 cup heavy cream
8 ounces mascarpone cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted

Unsweetened cocoa powder, for dusting

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
Line 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.

With an electric mixer on medium speed (I used my stand mixer), whisk together 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 (I used a stand mixer), whisk until mixture is fluffy, pale yellow, and thick enough to hold a ribbon on the surface for several seconds when whisk is lifted.

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.

Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full (I used a mini scoop to fill them evenly).
Bake, rotating tins halfway through (I didn't rotate), 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.

Make the syrup: Stir together coffee, marsala, and sugar until sugar is dissolved. Let cool.

Brush the tops of the cupcakes evenly with coffee syrup; repeat until all syrup has been used (I drizzled the syrup on the cupcakes individually, since I was afraid of making my cupcakes too soggy).
Allow cupcakes to absorb liquid 30 minutes.

Make frosting: 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.

To finish, place frosting onto cupcakes (I used a pastry bag with a large circular tip).
Keep in the fridge up to overnight in airtight containers.
Dust generously with cocoa powder just before serving (I got overzealous and did that part tonight for the pictures, and I'm hoping they'll last).

Tiramisu

Last weekend my friend asked me if I had ever made tiramisu before. Turns out its her favorite dessert (you learn something new every day!) and she wants to learn how to make it. The truth of the matter is that I have tasted tiramisu before - and enjoyed that bite or two - but I find it too rich and I'm done after those one or two bites.

Despite the fact that it's not my most favorite dessert, I decided that it would be a great idea to make it together.  First of all, happens to be that my mom loves tiramisu.  Secondly, I'm not one to shoot down a baking challenge!  So, we put a date on the calendar to make a tiramisu. We divided up the shopping list, and planned to meet at my apartment on the Sunday afternoon of Thanksgiving weekend to make a tiramisu.

Tiramisu is an Italian dessert made from mainly mascarpone cheese and ladyfingers, with some coffee flavored liquor and cocoa powder (and a few other ingredients). Although I seem to remember tiramisu having cinnamon in it, I looked up several recipes and none of them call for cinnamon.  My mom confirmed that there is, in fact, no cinnamon in tiramisu.  Silly me!

Since I usually bake alone, I was looking forward to the company in my (very small, although decent-sized by Manhattan standards) kitchen. I figured a bottle of wine - Italian, of course - would make the afternoon more fun, yet my presentation in two days is not done, so we skipped the bottle of wine and set out to make a tiramisu!

We used a tiramisu recipe I found online - one by Giada De Laurentiis from Food Network - without reading the reviews first (oops!).  We used a pan a bit smaller than the one the recipe called for and we still ran out of lady fingers.  We also used up the espresso-rum dipping mixture by the time the first layer of lady fingers had been dipped, but had all the ingredients on hand to make more of that mixture (but not enough lady fingers).

                                 Layering the lady fingers                 Covered in Chocolate Shavings

                                                                             Served!

All in all, I think the tiramisu came out well.  In the future, I'd definitely make a double batch of the espresso-rum mixture, buy extra lady fingers (and not soak them in the mixture too long), and 1.5 times the cheese mixture.  Or just use a smaller pan.  But if any of you have a family recipe for tiramisu, I'd love it if you'd pass it along...