Tiramisu
The 5th grade teachers planned a little pot-luck lunch this past Friday, and the theme started as Italian so I thought a tiramisu would be a good dessert to bring. This Italian theme changed to salads (pasta salad, fruit salad, etc.) but I had my heart set on tiramisu, so I stuck with it. I began searching for a classic tiramisu recipe. I found a site devoted entirely to tiramisu, heavenlytiramisu.com, which had a plethora of information about the ingredients in tiramisu and many different kinds of recipes. After searching through this site, epicurious and foodnetwork, I chose David Rosengarten’s recipe for Basic Tiramisu.
When you use 2/3 of a carton of eggs in one recipe, you know you’re in for something special…and a little decadent. Did I mention that there is also a cup of heavy cream, and a pound of marscapone in this recipe? I know it seems excessive, but if you’re going to do it, do it right. This recipe came together fairly quickly, but I did have to use quite a few bowls and make a good sticky mess on the counter. I used frangelico instead of the brandy called for in this recipe. One thing I would change is to make more layers of soaked lady fingers in between the layers of cream. I would also use more shaved chocolate in between each layer. Other recipes I read recommended letting the tiramisu set overnight in the fridge, so that is what I did. I set aside a little bowl for myself at lunch and planned to eat it that night after dinner. It was still pretty tasty, but the ladyfingers had started to disintegrate a little. So, I would not recommend more than 18 hours of sitting time. I think most people enjoyed the tiramisu at our teacher pot-luck, so I will consider this a success.
Ingredients
- EGGS, 8, with yolks and whites separated
- SUGAR, 1/3 cup
- MASCARPONE, 1 pound
- HEAVY CREAM, 1 cup
- ESPRESSO COFFEE, 2 cups cooled
- BRANDY, 2/3 cup
- LADY FINGERS, 30
- BITTERSWEET CHOCOLATE, 2 ounces grated
- COCOA POWDER, Dutch process, sifted, for garnish
Directions
- Mix the sugar into the egg yolks, blending well.
- Add a little Mascarpone at a time to the egg yolk mixture, and mix until smooth. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl, beat the whipping cream until stiff peaks form. Set this aside as well.
- In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
- Fold the whipped cream into the egg yolk mixture, then fold in the beaten egg whites.
- Spread about 1/3 of the cream mixture of a 4-6 quart glass baking dish or serving bowl.
- Place expresso coffee in a large mixing bowl, and combine with the brandy.
- Dip a lady finger into the expresso, lay it in baking dish on cream mixture.
- Top with grated chocolate.
- Continue in this manner, laying lady fingers side by side to cover the bottom.
- Place another 1/3 of cream mixture on top of soaked lady fingers.
- Cover this with another layer of expresso-soaked lady fingers.
- Top with remaining cream mixture and grated chocolate.
- Dust final layer with grated chocolate and cocoa powder.
- Chill 2 hours to set.