Tiramisu Two Ways

Photo courtesy of Christian Rottensteiner from Wikipedia

Oh Italy! I KNOW that there will come a day I will visit this beautiful country. And that day, I can NOT wait for! However, while I'm stuck here in the snow of the lovely midwest (Indiana to be exact) I decided to take a dessert trip to Italy. The country known for some great cuisine is the apparent home of the dessert Tiramisu. I just recently read an article about the origins of Tiramisu and it seem the story is a foggy one, but most fingers (are those lady fingers? haha) point to Italy as the origin of this fantastic dessert. All the foggy history aside, I'm just glad someone came up with this brilliant dessert. I decided to do two different version of it for my last Christmas dinner. I went with a traditional recipe and I decided to make a Gingerbread Tiramisu as well...

Caramel Frappulicious Cupcakes

I wanted to try something new with a cupcake so I got a recipe and made it my own. I wanted to do a coffee flavored cupcake. I LOVE coffee! lol So I got this coffee cupcake recipe and decided to go with a caramel flavor. I changed the recipe a bit to make it a little richer in flavor. I do however still need to do some work on the recipe. It did turn out decent but I want it to be better! I made some homemade whipped cream and caramel for the topping. The coffee flavor, I think, needs to be a little stronger and I don't think I'll use coffee grinds as the recipe calls for. I would also like to infuse more caramel flavor. Have caramel more present than just on the top. Maybe a caramel filling? I'll post next time I make them and I will post the recipe once I get it completed!

Also, I happened to take some of these to dinner last night. They were well liked. But than can be even better with a lil more work! The Vanilla Bean Cupcakes were a sure HIT! They were all gone! They are just too good to leave sit! hehe Thanks to all who tried them both last night!

Here are a few pics...