Tiramisu Muffins

Hi, this is my FIRST ever blog post and I'm excited! So I know there are hundreds if not thousands of food blogs out there, yet I'm still giving it a go? Well I love cooking (and eating). However and here’s the sad part I am a rubbish cook! I will give anything ago but my clumsiness over powers me and most of the time it ends up burnt or I forgot to add one of the vital ingredients (but I think that may be due to a lack of concentration). Now you are probably thinking so why start a blog? Aren’t they to show off good recipes? Well this is where my friends and family come in!  They are all so great and have volunteered to help me out and hopefully by the time I move out of home I shall be a pretty good cook ready to fend for myself! I will also be trying recipes myself periodically to see if I am improving.

So, my first recipe is... Tiramisu muffins. Yes, you read it right. I just love Tiramisu my mum has been making it for years. Although I do have to tell you as a small child I wasn’t such a fan. I used to like a be, well rather awkward when I was tired and decided that it looked like compost one evening that and the fact it contained coffee and liquor which most young children despise put me off rather a lot! However as I became older I grew to love the stuff and my mum began to make dish after dish at Christmas. Then one evening I was flicking through TV and saw tiramisu muffins being made. I immediately jumped on line to find the recipe, it was from ‘Lorraine Pascale recipe book baking made easy’ which I have since bought for my mum to add to the vast collection of recipe books she already owns. I decided I would give them a go to surprise my mum at the weekend with lovely cakes. Not sure how but at this point I managed to block out the flashbacks of disastrous cooking and ploughed on through.

After visiting the local shop and discovering not everywhere sells mascarpone, ricotta and amaretti biscuits I popped to the supermarket. Then on Sunday afternoon I finally made them while my mum was out. And guess what they turned okay with the help of my dad reminding me to get them out of the oven and checking off the ingredients as I put them in! At a first glance this recipe they seemed quite complex however this is not the case and they only take about half hour plus cooking time at tops to make! These amazing treats were my first and so far my only recipe success apart from reheating food.

With this recipe I decided to go a little experimental due to my lack of finding full sized amaretti biscuits and the fact I can’t purchase alcohol. First I decided to purchase ammaretinni biscuits as although being small I guess they are the same as the full sized ones. And at home we had amaretto an almond liquor which my uses for regular tiramisu so used this instead on the one the recipe used. I have since made with the recipe ingredients and feel it tastes great either way. The recipe below is the one I have tweaked.  I also think they work well without the alcohol if you prefer.

These lovely wonders turn out very moist and moreish so if you like tiramisu I can see you making many batches as I have (the pictures in here are from my seventh batch) although I think it was just my look that this batch tasted great however weren’t the best looking one I have made!

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Ingredients

Cake Mixture
- 165g/5½oz soft butter- 100g/3½oz light brown sugar- 100g/3½oz caster sugar- 4 free-range eggs- 260g/9oz self-raising flour- 80g/3oz ricotta cheese- 3 tbsp coffee essence or 2 tbsp coffee dissolved in 4 tbsp water- two handfuls of amarettini biscuits, roughly crumbled- Icing sugar and cocoa powder, for dusting

For the filling
- 500g/1lb 2oz mascarpone
- 1 vanilla pod, seeds only (or 2 drops vanilla extract)
- 4 tbsp icing sugar
- 4 tbsp amaretto liquor 
-  a handful amarettini biscuits, roughly crumbled

For the sugar syrup
- 165g/5½oz granulated sugar
- 165ml/5½fl oz water
- 2 tbsp coffee essence or 2 tbsp coffee powder

Preparation method

1.    Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4.

2.    Line a muffin tin with 12 cases

3.    Put the butter and both types of sugar for the cake mixture into a large bowl. Cream until light and fluffy.

4.    Add half the eggs and half the flour, stir well. Repeat with the other half of the eggs and sift in the flour.

5.    Add the ricotta, coffee and amarettini biscuits and mix well.

6.    Using an ice cream scoop o two dessert spoons; divide the mixture into the 12 muffin cases. Spread the mixture evenly in the cases using the back of the spoon.

7.    Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

8.    Leave to cool. While the cakes are cooking you can make the syrup and filling

9.    to make the filling mix all the ingredients together and set aside in the fridge until ready to assemble the cakes

10. To make the syrup put all the ingredients into a pan on the hob. Put it onto a low heat until all the sugar is dissolved

11.

12. Remove pan from the heat and leave to cool.

13. Once the cakes are cool enough to handle remove each cake from its case and cut in half horizontally.

14. Put the cake halves on a large plate or board.

15. Brush each cake liberally with the syrup. Use as much as you can this will make the cakes much moister and taste even better.

16. Then remove the filling from the fridge and dollop a generous spoonful onto one half of each, and then sandwich the halves back together.

17. You can then dust with icing sugar and cocoa powder if you wish. These are then ready to serve.