SimPle PleaSures (in EveRy BiTe)

Ugh.  Hate it when I fail to make the real thing. 

Well then again, what can ya do, when you only have (read: can only afford) certain ingredients and missing other important ones such as Mascarpone cheese, which, pretty much, well.. let’s just say.. mark the existance of a dessert called Tiramisu, somewhere in Italy.

Can you believe it, they even feed the cows special food to produce mascarpone.  Just like how they feed special food to the cows in Japan to make KOBE steaks. Apparently this type of steak melts in the mouth at first bite!

Anyways, back to my mission of making Tiramisu (haven’t had it in years, I think 6 for sure), I had the good old cream cheese instead, whipping cream, eggs (of course), and strong coffee.  I also had left over cake from my cup cake experiment the other day.  I looked at my cake book and it says that you can substitute the flour to make cake with something else, such as crackers … or other left over cakes, crumbs, etc.

So I made a sponged cake from left over, dried, cup cakes!  The result, man, it’s pretty moist!  I love it!

So, I thought of perhaps making some sort of tiramisu, and this is what it turns out:

The taste?  Let’s just say the husband wanted a second plate!  (He couldn’t wait until tomorrow, you’re supposed to leave it overnight..BUT..I guess that’s not happening, no sirry!.. ).

It’s close to the real thing, but if you really really want to taste how Tiramisu is supposed to taste, go with the real thing.  Get some special cow love and get mascarpone!

In addition to the ganached top cupcakes I made for my co-worker Dharshan, I managed to squezze in time to make marble cupcakes.  The recipe is from the Good Housekeeping collection of cakes and dessert, and I have to say I am a bit dissappointed with what it turns out to be. 

The cake was dry and was not as tasty as my regular sponge cake.  Perhaps it’s because the recipe did not include any egg yolks, which usually makes the cake with softer texture and more moist.  I should have tried to bake this one with water bath. Oh well, I mean it wasn’t bad, but I would definitely prefer the other one…

Dharshan commented that he wanted to take this one home for the wifey, and the cook (moi, yours truly) immediately stopped his plan and said to take the one with the ganache instead…. he tried to convince the cook by saying, “..but I prefer the ones with the little heartssss… “.. These are engineers, people, and they VERY seldom talk cute like this.  Cute is not a word for them. Logic is.   

It’s amazing what food can do to one’s mood. 

:)