Citrus Almond Cupcakes with Zabaglione

Citrus Almond Cupcakes with Zabaglione

These were made for the Italia v. France world cup final.

No pretty picture with this one.

As you have to eat zabaglione right away, this shot is the best I got- because, you know, I couldn't be bothered for anything more at 4am..

Getting UP at 3:30am just to make the zabaglione was plenty effort enough!

My father has a small hobby farm.

On it he has 4 chickens, who are ridiculously well looked after- I mean, my little Nonna feeds them better than she feeds herself..

And they are asked nothing more, than to peck about the yard all day.

SO, althought vegan, I do not have an issue with eating their eggs.

That said I was all out on sunday afternoon, so went all out vegan with my cupcakes.

(haha, I got some later on- just in time for the zabaglione though!)

I had found a yummy Italian chestnut cake recipe- but discovered my chestnuts had gone mouldy already!! :(

So I used VWAV again, and made a cupcake, loosely based on the citrus rum syrup cake.

Basically lot's of almond meal, chopped almond slivers, citrus peel, and orange juice..

(I thought the flavours would go nicely with the zabaglione)

The cakes had a yummy taste, but were extremely dense.

They did not keep well at all - read:became rock like, by the next day.

Making zabaglione at 3:30am, all the while, trying to be quite, so as not to wake the non-soccer enthusiast- well, it was rather difficult.

I was again disappointed by the supposed Italian culinary bible "Silver Spoon", as although followed to the letter, the zabaglione had far too much marsala..

STILL-

The cakes did taste yummy with the zabaglione.

The flavours worked quite nicely together, and I was glad for the change-
A frostingless cupcake (my husband insists, they were therefore actually muffins) ..

At least Italia fared better than my cupcakes.

I guess you win some, lose some.