Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Tiramisu Cake




Megan of My Baking Adventures chose this week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe: Tiramisu Cake. Please visit Megan’s blog for the complete recipe. The timing for this was just perfect since I needed to make a birthday cake for today. I figured this would be a very nice birthday cake. I haven’t eaten the cake yet, but I’ll update later with more information once I have had a taste.

I haven’t had tiramisu very many times, but I know it usually has coffee and chocolate flavors. The cake is sometimes made with ladyfingers, and I know that there is usually a cream filling that contains mascarpone cheese. When I used to bake a lot, any recipe that contained mascarpone cheese was off limits, since it can be so expensive. Maybe it’s more common now, because it didn’t seem that expensive. And since this recipe has you make a cake rather than buying ladyfingers, I figured it would be a reasonable splurge.

The cake is a fairly simple butter cake. I took the time to sift all of the dry ingredients, even though I have the world’s more inefficient sifter! You don’t have to fold in egg whites or anything, which was nice. The cake is quite petite, so it baked fairly fast. Mine had one small odd bubble on one of the layers, but I trimmed that off. The cake came out of the pan very cleanly and it had a good texture.

You have to make an espresso extract and then use part of that to make espresso syrup and also use it to flavor the whipped cream topping. You fold the mascarpone into whipped cream, which I always worry about a lot. I guess I have had enough practice now since I seem to be able to successfully fold in the ingredients without losing the loft of the whipped cream. I also worried that I wouldn’t have enough of the mascarpone whipped cream to fill and frost the cake, but I had enough. I typically make one and a half times the recipe for icing since I tend to run out. The filling was really good, you could taste the espresso. The mascarpone was a really subtle flavor, but it wouldn’t be tiramisu without it!

I’m really glad that Megan chose this recipe, so I had an opportunity to try making Tiramisu. My cake looks really great and I’m sure it will taste as good as it looks!

Update: We had this cake for the birthday celebration and it was so good! I thought the coffee flavor would be more pronounced, but it wasn't. You could certainly taste it but it wasn't overpowering. I also liked the texture of the cake, it had a nice firmess. Everyone at work loved it and I will definitely keep this on my list of good celebration cakes.

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, pages 266-268.

10 comments:

Marthe said...

Your cake looks fabulous, great job!!

Kara said...

That looks great! I'm sure you'll love it - everyone who has tried mine so far has raved about it!

chocolatechic said...

I love your chocolate covered coffee beans...or whatever they are.

Beautiful cake.

Rebecca of "Ezra Pound Cake" said...

Lovely cake design! Makes me wish I'd sprung for the beans.

MacDuff said...

I love the chocolate covered espresso beans. Gorgeous!

Bridget said...

I love the perfect swirls on the top of your cake. I can never seem to make that happen. I hope you enjoy the cake!

Kayte said...

This is one very elegant looking cake...very special for any special occasion...wow, you are very creative and make the styling look so easy!
Kayte
www.grandmaskitchentable.typepad.com

TeaLady said...

Cake looks fantastic. So pretty.

Unknown said...

Your cake looks so pretty! I love the chocolate covered beans - they're so much prettier than the cocoa powder I dusted on mine.

Megan said...

So....... have you tried it yet?

It certainly looks pretty and it didn't give you any trouble making it, so I am curious to know whether or not you liked it!