It’s been a long time since I wrote anything in this blog. Well, there were many reasons for it, but the main reason is that I have been trying to get used to my new apartment. The amount of daylight is rather challenging in this apartment and also, the oven is a mystery to me! Or it “was” a mystery, I think I almost understood how it works (it’s a gas oven!).

 

So, 2015 in my blog starts with a tiramisu recipe. Now I am not the biggest fan of tiramisu in fact. When I go to a cafe, even if there is tiramisu in the menu, I almost never order it, because I generally find something more interesting to eat. But… this recipe may have changed my tiramisu behaviour a bit..

 

The original recipe is from food wishes. That recipe uses Marsala wine. When I first tried the recipe about a year ago, I went to Alko (Finnish liquor store) to buy Marsala wine, but when I saw the price, switched to Brandy. I was in an extremely tight budget at that time and Marsala was 20e whereas I could find a decent bottle of Brandy for 8e! Ever since I did not change this habit and I still use Brandy. You can also use rum, but I personally never tried it.

 

Apart from Brandy / Marsala, it has mascarpone, espresso and ladyfinger cookies, which make it a “tiramisu”. Now, unless you are Italian, these ingredients may not always be easily found in your kitchen. I am not a coffee person, and I barely ever use my coffee machine, but in order to be able to make tiramisu anytime I want, I bought an additional espresso machine. And no, I still don’t really drink espresso, I use the machine for this dessert!

 

Ladyfingers are easily found in big K-markets and Stockmann’s market (I didn’t check but S-Market may sell them as well). So don’t bother baking them yourself really.

 

I like making tiramisu in portions, and this recipe makes about 3 glasses (unless you are using big drinking glasses!), however you can easily multiply to make one big portion or more smaller portions. Bon ap!

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Ingredients:
(fills 3 glasses)

 

1/2 cup / 1.2 dl espresso (pour into a shallow plate to make it easy to dip the cookies later)
2 tbsp / 30 ml and 1 tbsp / 15 ml Brandy (or Marsala wine, or Rum) divided
2 egg yolks
2 tbsp plus 1 tsp / 35 ml granulated white sugar
170 gr mascarpone cheese
1 tap / 5 ml vanilla extract
a pinch of salt (sorry, I forgot to put in the picture below!)
2 egg whites
10-12 ladyfinger cookies

 

To serve:
cacao powder
chocolate nibs or shaved chocolate

 

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1. Add 2 tbsp / 30 ml Brandy to espresso and just give it a little mix.

 

 

2. In a heatproof bowl, put egg yolks, sugar and 1 tbsp / 15 ml Brandy. Whisk a bit.

 

 

 

3. Put some water in a pan and heat it. While it is simmering, put the bowl with egg yolks mixture and whisk continuously until you get a pale yellow mixture. Take the bowl away from the pan every now and then to get the steam out. This way the egg mixture will not get too hot and the eggs will not get scrambled!

 

 

 

 

4. When you have the pale mixture, take it away from the heat and continue whisking for about 2 minutes, to cool down.

 

5. Add mascarpone, vanilla extract and a pinch of salt into the mixture and continue whisking until it gets smooth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. In the meantime, beat the egg whites until you get stiff peaks.

 

7. Add a little of the beaten egg whites to the other egg mixture and fold. Once all is folded, add the rest and continue gently folding, until the mixture is smooth and there are no lumps inside.

 

 

 

8. Prepare your lady fingers – if you are using a small glass like I did then you will have to cut them in two or more pieces.

 

9. Now comes the assembly part! You can do this any way you like, the idea is to have layers of ladyfingers dipped in espresso and the cream on top of each other. Start with a little bit of cream at the base and end with some cream — in between you can use as many ladyfingers as your glass allows you, in any direction. Do NOT forget to dip them in espresso though… Below you can see how I made the layers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10. Cover the dessert with a stretch film and put it in the refrigerator at least for 4 hours, best overnight.

 

11. While serving: cover the surface of the dessert with cacao powder and decorate with chocolate nibs, shaved chocolate or anything else you want! This is really yummy! Enjoy!