Apricot and Matcha Tiramisu

Today is probably the first time I felt that Fall is here. It was a cool crisp morning with a little sunshine when I went to work today. Leaves are falling and the wind would blow them everywhere. Ah, this makes me crave for warm soups and the warm smell of cinnamon and winter spices. Nothing much is happening lately, my routine has been work, go home, cook, watch a few episode of Futurama, then fell asleep on the last episode. I did manage to make a couple different desserts last weekend though.

I was moving pictures from external HD to my computer a few weeks ago, and to my surprise, I found many of old cake pictures from last year that I had forgotten that I made them already! I found at least ten different cakes from last year, so I will probably be posting some of them some time soon.

This cake is one of them, I made them before I went to my business assignment in China last year. This cake was one of Tobias birthday cakes, and since that time, the guests were mostly adult friends and family, I decided to make this apricot and matcha tiramisu. With the weather changing to a very gloomy one outside, I feel like we could at least use a little virtual sunshine with this post.

I first saw this cake on Keiko's blog about 7 years ago when I was still in college, just starting to get interested in baking, mostly brownies. Keiko's blog was one of the very first cooking blogs I read and I would come back everyday to admire the pictures and dreamed that someday, I would be able to make cakes as pretty as hers. I admired it so much that I attempted to make it (with no recipe on hand), it was a failure of course. I wasn't even familiar with mousse, or any of baking techniques. I kept checking her blog regularly and one day, she made the same cake again and posted the recipe this time! I bookmarked it and a few years after, I finally managed to make it.

Summer was over on October last year, so all stone fruits were long gone. Then I found a pile of them at my local market, completely ripe and blushing red. I had to get my hand on them and that was when I decided to finally make this cake!

This cake is not too difficult to make, pretty straight-forward compared to many of the multi-layered desserts I made and it's pretty! It was definitely really light as Keiko said, although I feel like I could barely taste the apricot, as expected. Apricot does not have a strong flavor, and when mixed with other ingredients, its taste could be overpowered. Perhaps I should have a thicker apricot layer and thinner mascarpone layer or putting a layer of apricot jelly in the middle, I bet that would be really nice, but this is a nice light Spring/Summer cake. I remember I tweaked the recipe a little bit and added more  mascarpone and more apricot puree, but I don't remember exactly the measurement. I will have to make a note next time I make this again.

It was my first time poaching fruits as well. I've always thought it was a hassle but it turned out to be pretty straight-forward :)

Since we are somewhat in the topic of Tobias 2nd birthday, here's another cake I made for the occasion

On a random note, I am also very glad to know that the my picture of Swedish Princess Cake is featured on Colin Cowie Wedding "Around the World in 11 Wedding Desserts".

Stay warm!