Posts Tagged ‘mascarpone’

Many of my preferred foods are tastes I acquired overtime. Take wine, for instance, drinking it is a ritual I love so much nowadays, but used to cause me a lot of “yuck faces” in my earlier years. The same goes for Tiramisu. The coffee dipped ladyfingers (I also wasn’t very fond of coffee in the past), the alcoholic taste that was too strong too often, and the fact of it being a cream based dessert, which I didn’t use to like back then - all of these made me not understand what the fuss is all about.

The yolks, after beating them by hand

Nowadays it’s one of  my favorite desserts. I think it started 2 years ago, while being on a trip to Tuscany. We ate a zabaglione based dessert which was actually perfect at the wonderful San Jacopo restaurant in Pistoia (Via Crispi 15, Pistoia) . Zabaglione is a traditional Italian dessert, made of egg yolks (heated to a temperature that destroys most bacteria, not to worry), sugar and an alcoholic ingrdient, tipically Marsala wine. It is also the base of the Tiramisu, in classic recipes.  

The yolks with Marsala and sugar, before heating

The Zabaglione is ready!

In Israel there are many “light” versions for Tiramisu, and I don’t mean from the calories point of view. Some of them omit the eggs, some of them replace the mascarpone with plain white cheese, and more changes that cause the recipe to drift further away from the original one. And as much as I like tweaking with recipes and adapting them, in this case, only the original version for me, please.

The final Zabaglione cream, the color of the bowl is a good indication
of the color the final cream should have

I’ve made Tiramisu for the first time for a dinner we’ve invited my Mother to. Mom remembered eating the most divine Tiramisu ever in a little restaurant in the marvelous Positano in Italy. I was aiming high, I know.. It was then that I’ve also discovered how easy it is to make Tiramisu, despite of what I thought before. The result was delightful - a classic and so tasty Tiramisu. I really love how the marsala taste goes wonderful with the coffee and cocoa. Although the one in Positano still remained my Mom’s number 1, the one I’ve made entered the honored 2nd place

The meaning of Tiramisu is “pull me up”, referring to the coffee and alcohol taste that strike you as soon as the first piece enters your mouth.  At Avi’s office they are playing a “20 questions” game once a week (a sort of a trivia game), and Avi is always proud of the fact that he knows all the answers to the food related questions. A few weeks ago there was a question about the meaning of Tiramisu, and apparently, I’ve never tought him that But on the bright side, on your “20 questions” you will surely know the answer

Some notes and tips about this Tiramisu:

* If you don’t have Marsala wine, or don’t like its taste, you can easily replace it with Port or even Brandy.

* When dipping the lady fingers in the coffee, make sure to do it as fast as you can, we don’t want the cookies to be mooshy.

* Coffee - the recipe calls for strong coffee, that’s in order for the coffee taste to remain in the lady fingers, despite the short dipping. How strong should the coffee be? According to your taste. I usually drink my coffee with 1 tsp of coffee in it, so strong for me means 1.5 or 2 times that amount.

* Sprinkle the cocoa powder over the Tiramisu just before serving, otherwise it will become moist from the cream layer, and will not be that attractive - tastewise and lookwise.

* Individual desserts always look better and more appealing to me. You can definitely make this recipe also in individual glasses. If they’re quite small, break the lady fingers to adjust them to the cup’s size.

* Folding the whipped cream into the Zabaglione is required in this recipe. Folding means gentle stirring, and is meant to prevent a beaten batter to lose the air that we’ve worked hard to introduce into it. One way of folding is holding the spatula in a manner that it touches the bottom of the bowl, and begin moving it in a form of the digit 8, while you cover as much of the bowl’s area as you can. After the folding process your batter should be uniform, though, so make sure it is before stopping.

* In order to give your Tiramisu the perfect finishing touch, use Dutch processed cocoa powder. Its taste is mild and wonderful, and it lacks that disturbing biterness of the simpler ones.

Tiramisu / Anna Maria Volpi
For a 20X25 cm pan, or a 20X30 cm pan, for a shorter Tiramisu

Ingredients:
4 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup Marsala wine (see tips for substitution options)
450 gr Mascarpone cheese
250 ml heavy cream
25-30 lady finger cookies (depends on the pan size you’ve chosen, and of the size of the cookies)
1 1/2 cups strong coffee
2 tsp sugar

Dutch processed cocoa powder, for sprinkling on top

Directions:
1. Prepare the coffee in a small bowl, stir in the sugar and let cool.
2. Place the egg yolks in the bowl of a double boiler. Beat them well by hand, until fluffy and their color becomes lighter (about 5 minutes).
3. Add in the sugar and Marsala wine and beat until incorporated.
4. Place the bowl on top of a double boiler and whisk until the zabaglione mixture thickens (this happens just before boiling point - when small bubbles appear).
5. In a separate bowl whip the cream until soft peaks.
6. In a separate bowl mash the mascarpone until creamy.
7. Pour the zabaglione mixture upon the mascarpone and mix until incorporated.
8. Add in the whipped cream, and fold it into the zabaglione-mascarpone mixture (see tips about folding).
9. Assemble the Tiramisu: Lightly soak the ladyfingers in the coffee, one at a time and each one from both sides, arrange them as the bottom layer in the pan. Spread half of the cream over the lady fingers, then soak and arrange another layer of lady fingers, and spread the remaining cream mixture upon them.
10. Chill for at least 3 hours before serving.
11. Just before serving, sprinkle with cocoa powder. Serve within 48 hours from the preparation time, after that the lady fingers will become too mooshy.