Tri-color cookie cupcake bites!

I am very excited to talk about this recipe today!  We're going to revisit those delicious Italian tri-color cookies (also known as rainbow or seven-layer cookies) but give them a twist into mini cupcake form!  My tri-color cookie cupcake bites taste very similar to the original in cookie form but take much less time to make.  The "twelve-hour project", as I've called it, becomes a less than two-hour project!  (Apologies in advance for what's likely to be excessive use of "!" in this post.)

Let me take a small step back and talk about the cookies (pictured below, left) again.  When I eat them, I marvel at how genius the marriage of rich almond cake with apricot preserve and bittersweet chocolate is (and I'm not a jam person).  I used to enjoy the cookies occasionally from Italian bakeries where I could find them but hit the jackpot two Christmases ago when I learned how to make them.  That's been one of the biggest success/highlight for me as far as discoveries thanks to this blog.  They really are our family-favorite cookie, although the title "cookie" doesn't seem to do them justice.  I think of them as petit fours, or small dessert cakes.

Since that first time in December 2011, I've made at least six batches of the cookies.  I'd do it more often but they are time consuming, taking as much as 12 hours to make, although much of it is wait-time, waiting for the layers to chill in the refrigerator.  My husband requested tri-color cookies for his birthday a few months ago in November (come to think of it, he also asked for them for Father's Day), then I made another batch for us to savor over Christmas.  As we were finishing the latest batch, we were already hankering for more but as much as I love them, I was thinking "again?...it's a lot of work!"  So I started thinking about a way to shorten the time involved and wondered if I could turn them into cupcakes so I could skip some of the steps.

I googled it and as it turns out, my idea wasn't totally original, although there's not much out there or an actual recipe that I could find.  And in thinking about it, I became convinced that mini cupcakes were the way to go.  They're more like the petite 1.5-inch cookies and I think the mini size creates a better balance of almond cake to jam to chocolate (each layer of flavor being integral to the whole) that makes them so good.

After testing these mini cupcakes using liners and without, I recommend baking them with liners

As with any cupcakes, these do involve a bit of fuss.  I baked the batter in mini cupcake tins, then carved out a little hallow inside each to pipe strained apricot preserve into so that there's a good amount of it in each cupcake.  Finally, I topped each generously with a cap of bittersweet chocolate - not ganache or chocolate frosting but straight up dark chocolate as it should be.  I found that using cupcake liners helps the mini cakes bake up more evenly and makes the job of adding the chocolate topping quicker and easier versus not using them.

Now here's what you don't need to do when making these cupcakes instead of the cookies:  You do not need 3 pans or to bake 3 batches/layers.  You do not need to chill anything for at least 8 hours.  You skip the layering, flipping, trimming, and coating of both sides with chocolate.  Plus, you don't have to worry about slicing them and doing so without cracking the chocolate. 

These mini cupcakes are a big time saver, the major benefit being you don't need much advance planning and can eat them same day, within a couple of hours.  If you really want to cut the time and work down further, eliminate the food coloring altogether so that there's no extra separating and mixing; just bake plain, yellow color cupcakes.  The flavor will obviously be the same.  I made the colors here to drive home the point of what they are but next time around, I'd like to skip the food coloring (little guy seriously protesting this intention though).

Now on the crucial question of taste, these are very similar to the tri-color cookies, particularly when you take a big bite and get that combination of flavors in your mouth.  In other words, they are yummy!!  But of course, tri-color cookies are still "king" because of their more uniform layers (all seven of them!) and flavors of chocolate-almond cake-apricot preserve.  The cupcakes tend to be a tad bit dryer around the exposed sides whereas you get to trim away the dry edges of the cake before cutting them into cookies.  But baking and storing the cupcakes in paper liners largely solves that problem.

All in all, this little experiment worked out really well and I'm very happy I gave it a go.  My family and I all loved it and I'll be making these when the need for a little tri-color cookie "fix" arises but I don't want to spend 12 hours on it.  This is a great alternative if you want to reserve the cookie project for the holidays or special occasions and make these during other times.

I know many people share our love of Italian tri-color or rainbow cookies (thank you to the Italian-American immigrants who created it to honor their country and flag).  I hope anyone who enjoys the cookies and decides to give that recipe or this cupcake version a try find it worth their time and effort, like I do.  Or I hope there's a good Italian bakery near you where you can get these delectable treats.