Tales from Italy

Passport & Plate - Tiramisù

Italy | Friday, March 14, 2014 | 5 photos

***Ingredients***

A. Lady Finger Biscuits
3 eggs, divided
90g caster sugar, divided
1 tsp vanilla extract
60 g all-purpose flour
~2 tbsp icing sugar

B. Creamy Mascarpone
500g mascarpone cheese
4 eggs, separated
90g sugar

C. Coffee Blend
2 cups strongly brewed
60ml kahlua (optional)



***How to prepare this recipe***

A. Lady Finger Biscuits
-Preheat the oven to 200°C.
-Beat the egg yolks with half of the sugar until creamy. Mix in the vanilla.
-In another bowl beat the egg whites until soft peaks form, add the remaining sugar and whisk until the egg whites form stiff peaks.
-Sieve the flour into the bowl containing the creamy egg yolks and fold it in with a spatula. Then, fold in the whipped egg whites.
-Fill the batter into a piping bag and pipe into ladyfinger shapes, about 10 cm long. Dust with icing sugar, then bake until they are light golden, 11 to 13 minutes. Carefully pull the lady fingers from the parchment.

B. Creamy Mascarpone
-Beat the egg whites in a bowl. Whip them until soft peaks form. Add 45g of the sugar slowly until the egg whites are stiff.
-In another bowl, beat the remaining 45g sugar with the egg yolks until creamy.
-Whip the mascarpone cheese in a third bowl. Add the beaten egg yolks and mix until fully incorporated.
-Fold the egg whites into the mascarpone mixture.

C. Coffee Solution
Mix together the coffee and kahlua(if using) to use as the soaking syrup for the lady fingers.

D. Assembling the Tiramisù
-You could either assemble it as one big cake, or in glasses for individual servings.
-Fill a shallow dish with the coffee solution. Dip the lady fingers in it then layer into the serving dish. Cover the biscuits with a layer of Tiramisù cream and dust with cocoa powder. Lay down the next layer of soaked lady fingers: place them in the opposite direction, crossing the direction of the previous layer. Cover the second layer with the cream. Continue in the same fashion until you have filled up your glass. Finally, sprinkle the tiramisù with cocoa powder and grated chocolate. Let this set in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.



***The story behind this recipe***
I was never a fan of Tiramisù. Mostly because I was never a fan of coffee. Whenever I saw Tiramisù on a restaurant’s menu, I’d dodge it for something else. That was until I found the Tiramisù that changed my life.

It took one very persistent friend and just one bite of Tiramisù at a tiny restaurant in Verona, Italy, to convert me. As we were flipping through the dessert menu, my friend, Kainaz, suggested I try the Tiramisù. “Nah, I’m not sure I want to eat that. I’m not a fan of coffee”, I said. “How can you not eat Tiramisù in Italy?” she scorned. I sheepishly relented. And that was it. One bite, and I knew I wasn’t sharing my glass of Tiramisù with anyone.

On returning home to Mumbai, I felt the need to replicate the Tiramisù. Not the kind you assemble with ready-made biscuits and mascarpone, but one that is made from scratch. I had to make sure I had the very best recipe that would help me re-live my memories of eating Tiramisù. I collected recipes and tips from various sources: friends in Italy and my international blog readers who swear by their grandma’s recipe. The result was a bundle of almost identical recipes, the highlight being when my friend Marco, a native of Brescia, very religiously documented his 18-step Tiramisù-making process and sent it over to me with very strict instructions. It was all very exciting.

On D-day, Kainaz brought me her special coffee blend to make the soaking syrup even more special. I made several visits to the other end of the city to get the very best dairy cream for making my own mascarpone. I baked the lady finger biscuits from scratch and worked my muscles to get the creamy egg yolks and stiff egg whites. And then I assembled it all.

The hardest part was waiting for the Tiramisù to set. One sneaky bite transported me to those quaint cobblestone streets of Verona. Coffee-soaked sponges, soft and cloud-like creamy mascarpone, topped with the very best Valrhona cocoa and chocolate shavings. It was nothing short of heaven in a jar.