A cupcake 'Pick me Up'

I've known for a few days that we were picking up Cupcake yesterday and I thought long and hard about what to make for her debut. I thought I'd decided on the Heart Cupcakes I'd seen on Bake it in A Cake, but then, as women are prone to do, I changed my mind. Ingredients had to be sourced and bought but it was all worth it, as I was keen to make some cakes I'd never made before.

The tiramisu cupcake includes four of my favourite things in the world; cake, coffee, booze and a bit of chocolate. How could it fail to be perfect?

I used the recipe from the Love Bakery cookbook (I know them again - but I love this book) and of course I used Cupcake to mix it all. I thought I may have over mixed as the cakes felt a little firm, but then when I poured over the syrup of Monmouth filter coffee, sugar and lashings of Marsala they soon softened up.

The cupcakes are frosted with a marscapone frosting - which is marscapone cheese, a very small amount of icing sugar and whipped double cream mixed together. I had to get out my trusty old Dualit mixer to whip the cream while Cupcake mixed the icing sugar and marscapone - I hope she wasn't too put out.

The frosting was then piped onto the booze and coffee soaked cupcakes, topped with a cloud of Green and Blacks cocoa powder and some shavings of Green and Blacks 85% chocolate. Divine.

So how did they taste you ask? Absolutely delicious. I couldn't have chosen better for Cupcake's first foray into baking. The only thing I'd do differently is soak the cakes more - I didn't use all the mixture as I thought it may drown the cakes too much, but I think it would have been fine. They cakes had a lovely boozy hit and the coffee was nice but not too overpowering - I used very strong coffee so thought it might be too much. The frosting is another to add to my list of favourite things - very light and airy - like eating a tasty cloud covered cupcake. We ate ours with a little splosh of Marsala over the top for an extra boozy kick!

Cupcake did us proud! She mixed everything beautifully and her little guard thing stopped the usual dust of icing sugar all over my kitchen. I think she can stay ;)

By the way there are a lot of different stories behind the origin of Tiramisu but my favourite is the account of the recipe's invention at an Italian brothel to provide an energy boost to exhausted clients - maybe I should be approaching the 666 Sauna down the road to see if they'd like to buy some boxes for their clientèle!