Tiramisu

I grew up in Jersey and one of the best parts of growing up there is that you can get great Italian food pretty much anywhere. That dumpy little Italian restaurant? Their food is probably amazing. Now that I live in San Francisco, the same is true here for Mexican restaurants (Italian restaurants? Not so much…).

Anyway, the best part of a great Italian meal may be the dessert, and that dessert must always be tiramisu. No question. Part of it, I think, is that it seems kind of decadent, and part of it is that never seemed like a make-at-home dessert.

Of course, since I started actually writing and adapting recipes I thought – “why can’t I make this at home”?

Turns out, with a little bit of interwebs research and a little trial and error, I can! So can you – it ain’t too hard.

Difficulty: medium
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Ingredients

· 6 egg yolks (this isn’t health food)

· 1 cup sugar

· 1 ¼ cup mascarpone cheese, brought to room temperature

· 1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream (again, not health food)

· 1 T powdered sugar

· 1 t vanilla

· 24 – 30 ladyfingers (depending on their size – you want to have two full layers of ladyfingers in your final creation)

· 1 cup cold espresso or cold, strong coffee

· ½ cup coffee liqueur

· 2 T sweetened cocoa powder

Directions

So, this one isn’t super difficult, but it is somewhat labor-intensive. Still, I think you’ll decide it’s worth it.

Put the egg yolks and sugar into a glass bowl and use a sauce pan to make a double boiler.

Put a shallow amount of water in the sauce pan, and put the glass bowl on top of it, making sure that the water does not touch the bowl – you’re going to want the steam to do the work here.

Bring the water to boil as quickly as possible, whisking the egg yolks and sugar the entire way. After the water hits boil, lower the temperature to a simmer and continue whisking for 10 minutes (I told you this was a little labor-intensive).

After 10 minutes, take the bowl off the heat and whisk vigorously until the mixture is thick and lemon-yellow in color.

After you’re done whisking, let the mixture sit for 5 minutes, then add in the mascarpone, whisking again until everything is well combined.

In a separate bowl, add the cream, powdered sugar and vanilla and beat with your hand mixer until you’ve got stiff peaks – you’re making whipped cream here.

Fold the whipped cream – gently – together with the mascarpone mix until everything is just combined and set that aside.

In another bowl, mix the coffee/espresso and the coffee liqueur. Next, get out your ladyfingers – we’re going to be doing this in two stages.

Dip them one by one into this bowl and completely cover them, but don’t leave them in so long that they get soggy. You just want them wet, not soaked.

After you dip each ladyfinger, put it in the bottom of an 8 or 9” baking dish. It should take half your ladyfingers to completely cover the bottom.

Get your mascarpone mix and spoon half of that over the ladyfingers.

Then, repeat – dip and arrange the ladyfingers into another layer, add another layer of the mascarpone mix.

You’re pretty much done now, except for the waiting. Put this in the fridge overnight to chill, and sift/dust the cocoa on top just before you serve it.