No these aren’t lady fingers dipped in coffee, layered with whipped cream, but these tiramisu cupcakes come pretty close. When you have a friend who loves tiramisu, you figure out how to make tiramisu cupcakes for their birthday; it’s just what friends do.
These tiramisu cupcakes start out with my go-to cake recipe. I found this recipe years ago (I don’t even remember where I found it) and I’ve used this base for every birthday cake since. It’s moist, fluffy, delicious, and best of all, completely hassle free. No need for cake flour or anything special; just your plain old all-purpose flour and the basic ingredients make perhaps the most perfect cake base ever.
Tiramisu Cupcakes:
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¾ tsp baking soda
- Pinch of salt
- ½ cup milk
- ¼ cup melted salted butter
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
- ½ cup hot water
Coffee Syrup
- 3 tbsp strong brewed coffee
- 3 tbsps kalua or other coffee liqueur
Frosting
- 8oz mascarpone at room temp
- 1/3 cup whipped cream cheese at room temp
- ½ cup powdered sugar
- 1 tbsp melted salted butter
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Unsweetened coco powder for garnish
Makes 12 cupcakes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Start by mixing the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt) in the bowl of a stand mixer. NOTE** You can absolutely do this by hand, but I made these in a stand mixer so that’s how the recipe is written.
Next, mix the melted butter, milk, egg, and vanilla bean paste in a separate bowl until well combined. Add in the wet ingredients all at once and stir to combine. The batter will be very thick. Add in the hot water in a slow stream while mixing the batter to thin it out, then turn the mixer up to medium for a minute to make sure that everything is well incorporated and to add air to the mixture.
Divide the batter into 12 muffin tins lined with paper liners, and bake in a 350 degree oven for 18-19 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean.
Next, take the toothpick and poke holes in the top if each cupcake while they’re still warm. Mix the coffee and kalua (or other coffee liqueur) together, and spoon over each cupcake. You want enough to soak in so that it gives a nice coffee flavor. You may have some of the coffee mixture over, which you can divide over the rest of the cupcakes or toss, depending on how much coffee flavor you want them to have.
Let the cupcakes cool completely and start on the frosting.
In the bowl of a standing mixture, mix the mascarpone, cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract until it is smooth and creamy. Once the cupcakes are fully cooled. You can frost them with a knife or pipe the frosting on each cupcake to make them look super pretty. I used a piping tip and a ziplock bag to do this.
Sift unsweetened coco powder over the top to make them look and feel even more like tiramisu cupcakes and enjoy!
