It’s Friday! You deserve a cupcake. I know it’s the Friday before Thanksgiving week, and you’re probably starting your salad diet (or, ordering stretchy pants (or both)), and a cupcake might be the last thing you need. But, I shared a teaser photo of these tiramisu cupcakes on my instagram, and you guys demanded them. And I’m totally cool with that. I love the flavor profile of tiramisu. I love the soft ladyfingers dunked in an espresso syrup made with Kahlua, and I especially love the creamy mascarpone filling. If you’ve never had mascarpone, it’s like cream cheese, but better. It’s sweeter and lacks the tang of cream cheese. I actually prefer it to cream cheese in most applications (except for bagels, of course! Oh, and cheesecake in a loaf pan). If you can’t find it, however, just use regular cream cheese with an extra bump of powdered sugar. While the creamy layer in a regular tiramisu is made up of sabayon plus mascarpone, we’re going to skip that part. These cupcakes deliver all of the flavor of tiramisu without all of the work.
This recipe makes just 4 cupcakes, as most of my small batch cupcake recipes do. I hope that’s enough for you to meet your tiramisu craving without going over-board. You can pull a shot of espresso for this, or dissolve the instant espresso powder (I use Medaglia D’Oro brand) into hot water. I’ve done both and hardly notice a difference. You can also substitute Frangelico for Kahlua. You might notice a lack of chocolate in this recipe. That’s because a chocolate-covered espresso bean on top is all the chocolate I need in my tiramisu. If you feel otherwise (and I’m sure you do), you can finely shave chocolate into the frosting and dust cocoa powder on top.
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Wilton 6-cup Muffin Pan
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