End Of Exams - Tiramisu Cupcakeys!

Click for bigger piccy

Unfortunately these look HIDEOUS in the pictures. They looked damn adorable on individual plates and I seem to have taken pics of the ugly ones haha.

Made dinner tonight to celebrate with family + fiancee end of exams. Chicken paella wiuth chozorio and bacon *drooool* and tiramisu cupcakes. I think I got in everyones good books - Just as well because the whole creation session took hours lol! Once again this is another super long reciepe, infact much longer than the lemon meringue cupcakeys, because the assembly factor of these takes SOOOO long.

To be honest the inspiration for these comes from movenpick tiramisu icecream, possibly the best icecream flavour in the world. You can see the empty carton in the background of the finished pics hehe! The marscapone cream tastes just like the icecream and I ate waaay too much of it in the baking process! But it was totally worth it ;)

Vanilla ButterCake
90g Softened Butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1 cup self raising flour
2 tablespoons milk

1. Preheat oven to 160 (or 180 if you dont have a fan) and line 12 muffin cases
2. Beat all ingredients together on low speed until just combined, and then on high speed until batter changes to lighter colour.
3. Divide mixture into cases, smooth tops and bake for 15-20 minutes, turn onto wire rack to cool.
4. Make mascarpone cream & coffee mixture.

Mascarpone Cream
250g Mascarpone (this is actually a cheese, sometimes found in the cheese or sour cream section)
1/4 cup icing sugar
1 tablespoon marsala ( i used port, with a similar result but I imagine marsala would be much much better)
3/4 cup / 180ml thickened cream, whipped

1. Combine mascarpone, icing sugar and marsala in bowl and fold in cream.

Coffee Mixture
2 tablespoon instant coffee granules
2/3 cup boiling water
4 tablespoons marsala (or 3 if you prefer)

1. Combine all in small bowl, cool.

Assembly
1. Remove cakes from cases. Take a cake and carefully cut horizontally into 4. I dunked each piece into the coffee mixture but you could brush it on if you wanted a less tiramisu-ey result.
2. Join the pieces with layers of mascarpone cream.
3. Spread the tops of the cakes with mascarpone cream and sprinkle with finely grated dark chocolate.
4. Refridgerate for 3 hours before serving.

Piccies (I need to refine my camera skills)

First Ever Documented Cupcakes! Lemon Meringue

This is a recipe I adapted from a womans weekly. They are by far the tastiest, most impressive and best praised cupcakes I have made to date. My family were seriously impressed and my fiancees friends seemed to love them too! Yay, its always good when things go right eh. I must say these did take alot of time, in that they are really a 3 step reciepe.

Anyway here goes:

Coconut Lemon Curd Cupcakes
125g softened butter
the finely grated rind of 1 lemon
2/3 cup (150g) caster sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup (80ml) milk
3/4 cup (60g) fine dessicated coconut
1 1/4 cups self - raising flour
Jar of Lemon curd for filling cupcakes - about 1/3 will be used


1. Preheat oven to 180/160 fan forced. (My oven is super hot so I used 150). Line 12 muffin cases.
2. Beat butter, rind, sugar and eggs until light and fluffy
3. Stir in milk and coconut then sifted flour. Spoon into cases and smooth tops off.
4. Bake cupcakes for 15 - 20 minutes until light brown
5. Cut a 2cm deep hole into the top of each muffin - fill with lemon curd, eat cake tops :)

Coconut Meringue
4 egg whites
1 cup (220g) caster sugar
1 1/3 cups (95g) finely dessicated coconut

1. Beat egg whites in a medium bowl with an eletric whisk until soft peaks form
2. Gradually add sugar beating till sugar dissolves
3. Fold in coconut.

Spoon Meringue into a piping bag (I used a paper lunchbag with the corner cut off) , pipe meringue onto top of cupcakes, starting from the outside going in a spiral to the middle.

Place cakes on oven tray and bake in hot oven (200) until meringue is lightly browned.

Enjoy. I should have piped meringue with a smaller hole in the bag, and made it prettier but it was my first experience with meringue ever! Probably would have helped if it was a bit thicker too.

Piccies