We were going to a cookout on Saturday for Joe's birthday and I figured I'd make the Tiramisu cake for that. But who wants to deal with a cake at a cookout? A knife to cut it, forks, plates...and how many people does this cake serve? That's all? Well that wouldn't be enough for everyone to have some...and I wasn't about to double it or anything.
So I decided to make petit fours.
I'm out of practice - who makes petit fours just for lunchbox snacks? - but I figured I could wing it.
So instead of baking the cake in two round 9" pans, I baked it in two 13 x 9" rectangular pans and ended up with nice, thin layers of cake. They baked in about 15-20 minutes.
I mixed up the rest of the components - the hot espresso (I just used strong coffee), the syrup, and the mascarpano filling.
I put one layer of cake down and leveled it off with a big serrated knife, and then I painted it with some of the coffee and Kahlua syrup. Then on went a layer of the mascarpone filling, and then the mini chocolate chips. I painted the other piece of cake with more syrup, flipped that over onto the layer of mascarpone and chips, and painted the top with the last of the syrup. Then added the rest of the coffee to the mascarpone mixture and spread a nice layer of that over the top of the cake.
Like so:
Next, with my serrated knive and a keen eye and a steady hand (hahahahahahaha) I sliced off the edges of the cake so that all the edges were clean and squared off.
Looks pretty yummy so far...
Next up - because when you're making petit fours they're supposed to all be the same size - I held a ruler along the edges of the cake and marked each inch in the frosting with the tip of a paring knife.
And then, a couple sections at a time, I sliced first across the cake, and then across each strip, to make little 1" square bites. I wasn't as good at it as I used to be.
But not too terrible. As I cut apart the little stacks of cake, I set them on a large tray to bring to the cookout.
It really looks yummy, I think.
I topped each piece with a mini chocolate chip, and that was it. And they were great. The kids liked them, Bill liked them, I did, and it looked like plenty of people at the cookout did, too. Yay!
I think if I were to make this again - and it's a distinct possibility - I would either use shaved chocolate instead of the chips, or a thin layer of ganache, or maybe just leave the chocolate out of the middle altogether. Other than that, I wouldn't change a thing.
Much thanks to Megan, of My Baking Adventures, for selecting this week's recipe!! You can find the recipe posted here on her site or in Dorie Greenspan's book Baking: From My Home to Yours.
If you'd like to see what all the rest of the rest of the TWD bakers did with the Tiramisu Cake recipe, go here and check out the blogroll.
