Tiramisu

After reading sleepiekoala's blog sometime back I was inspired to make a tiramisu cake. So I decided why not do one for the pizza party. Here is my version. I got the recipe off my mum. I reckon some improvements could be made. It needs more sugar, maybe extra 3 tablespoons. If unsure of sweetness, taste the cheese mixture and adjust the sweetness according to your liking. I also found it lacking in kahlua so I would double up the amount.

2 tubs of 250gm mascarpone cheese
1 packet of 400gm savoirdi or sponge fingers
1 cup of strong coffee
400ml whipping cream
4 egg yolks
1 tbsp vanilla essence
6 tbsp kahlua
6 tbsp brown sugar
cocoa powder

1) Cream the mascarpone cheese in a bowl. Add egg yolk, vanilla essence and sugar.
2) Whisk whipped cream until stiff and mix into cheese mixture and leave aside.
3) Line a 9 inch rectangular container and baking paper.
4) Add the coffee and kahlua into a small bowl and dip the sponge fingers (one side only) and lay it in the container 1 inch apart.
5) Add some of the cheese mixture above the sponge fingers and fill in the gaps to form a layer. Sprinkle some cocoa powder. Continue with the next layer of dipped sponge fingers, cheese and cocoa powder.
6) Cover the container and leave in fridge overnight.
7) Before serving brush on more cocoa powder.

*I also freezed the tiramisu for 2-3 hours just to firm the texture up a bit. Anyway here are the photos of my tiramisu cake. I forgot to layer the container with baking paper prior to starting and also forgot to add the vanilla essence to the cheese mixture. Doh.

Kahlua, extra strong espresso and savoiardi or sponge fingers

Creaming the mascarpone cheese, sugar and egg yolk

After adding the whipped cream to mascarpone mixture

Arranging the dipped sponge fingers

Layering the cheese mixture above the sponge fingers

Dusting cocoa powder then adding another layer of the dipped sponge fingers

About to go into the fridge to set overnight

End product - about to dust cocoa powder on top before serving

A slice of my tiramisu cake

So you think my tiramisu cake looks good? Wait there is more to it! I had bravely challenged Keith to make his own version of tiramisu to see who would come out best. Of course it was a stupid idea. No brownie points on guessing who would emerge the loser of the tiramisu challenge. Me, me, me! Bah :P

I did it to spur Keith on as he is not a fan of making desserts. He took it seriously and his French recipe book quickly surfaced from the bookshelf. Just by looking at the recipe book, I knew I would be the loser as his recipe asked for lots of rum/kahlua and a lot more sugar. I waved the white flag and told Keith to just serve his tiramisu to the guests. He refused and said I had to serve mine too. Anyway some of my colleagues were very supportive of me and said they would have a bigger piece of my tiramisu to his. Thanks guys, you know who you are haha. I would honestly go for Keith's if I had to choose so no hard feelings at all. I found the incident very funny in fact. No one on the table would choose the winner. They said that both our tiramisus were different in their own way. Yeah, yeah just being extremely polite! Here are the photos of Keith's tiramisu.

Doing the same process of layering the sponge fingers and cheese

Dusting cocoa powder

Tiramisu sitting in fridge waiting to be served

End product. He served it with sliced strawberries but I did not take a photo of it.

Here is the recipe Keith used. It is called Creole Tiramisu by Konemann from the book Exotic Desserts from the French Caribbean.

For the sabayon:
8 egg yolks
3/4 cup or 200ml dark rum
31/2 tbsp or 50ml sugar syrup*
250g mascarpone cheese
1/2 cup plus 50g grated coconut
4 egg whites
31/2 tbsp or 50g sugar
2 cups or 250ml whipping cream
2 cups or 250ml coffee
8 slices genoise**

For the decoration:
31/2 tbsp or 50ml coconut milk
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

Serves 4, Chilling Time 4 hours

1) Prepare a sabayon with the egg yolks, 31/2 tbsp or 50ml of the rum and the sugar syrup. Whisking constantly, warm the mixture over low heat until thick and frothy, then allow to cool.
2) Whisk the mascarpone cheese until smooth then fold it into the sabayon and add the grated coconut. Beat the eggs with the sugar until stiff peaks form, then whip the cream and fold the egg whites and the whipped cream into the sabayon.
3) Brew 2 cups of very strong coffee and add the rest of the rum to it. Trim the edges of the genoise and cut it into 5 squares to fit the base of the molds. Cut 1 of the 5 slices into quarters and soak all of the genoise pieces in the coffee.
4) Line the sides ot each pyramid mold with 4 triangles of parchment paper. Fill the tip of the mold with the mascarpone mixture. Press 1 of the smaller quarters of genoise into the mascarpone, fill the rest of the mold with the mixture and close with a whole slice of genoise. Chill for at least 4 hours. Unmold, sprinkle with cocoa powder and serve, garnished wit coconut milk and cocoa powder.

*Sugar syrup
Ingredients: 4 cups or 1 liter water - 4 cups or 1kg sugar.
Preparation: Dissolve the sugar in the water and let it boil for 3 minutes.

**Genoise. In this case Keith substituted it for the savoirdi or sponge fingers.

Keith substituted rum for kahlua. He also omitted the coconut powder and coconut milk.