My First Tiramisu

One of our good friends came back to Perth for the Christmas and we had a gathering at our house on the 29th for a "games night", basically a night involving someone (usually the same person) bringing their games console as we still haven't bought ours yet. Thanks for bringing it guys!

We had a small aussie style BBQ but I was wondering what was for dessert? It was probably just for me as the guys generally aren't that sweet tooth savy. Ok, it was just an excuse for me to "make" some dessert, hehee~ So I did a flip-thru of my nice dessert recipe book trying to find something not too heavy for the summer, had to be cold and also easy to make on the day - and I found Tiramisu ~ yay!

I got the mascarpone cheese the day before together with the italian sponge fingers. For those that don't know, I got this from good ol' wikipedia, mascarpone cheese is a triple-cream cheese made from fresh cream. I always try to find out in case there are none on the shelves and I wound end up having to look for a substitute instead.

I had a really good tupperware box that fit the sponge fingers nicely, so I highly recommend it, especially if you need to take it away or just for storage. However if you don't have one, just use a flat dish that allows you to do at least two layers of the sponge. I did three layers on mine.

Ingredients

• 5 eggs, separated
• 180g Caster Sugar
• 250g Mascarpone cheese
• 250ml very strong coffee (chilled)
• 3 tablespoons of brandy or sweet marsala
• 1 packet of sponge fingers
• 80g grated dark chocolate to dust on top
  

Method

1. Beat egg yolks with sugar until it is light and fluffy. It will leave a ribbon trail when you lift the whisk up.
2. Add mascarpone cheese to the egg yolk and beat it til smooth.
3. Whisk egg whites until soft peaks form
4. Fold in egg whites into the mascarpone mixture
5. In a shallow dish, pour in the coffee and the brandy
6. Dip the sponge fingers into the mixture, but not too much that they fall apart
7. Arrange sponge fingers into a tightly packed layer in the base of a dish/tupperware container.
8. Spread half or one third of the mascarpone mixture over the layer til it covers the sponge fingers.
9. Add another layer of sponge fingers and layer with the mascarpone mixture.
10. Repeat the steps until you finish and smooth out the top layer with the mascarpone mixture.
11. Leave it in the fridge for 4 hours (to be safe), I find it taste better overnight.
12. Dust it with grated chocolate before you serve.
    

The tiramisu turned out very nice, I made it in the afternoon before our friends arrived and waited til dessert time so it had time to chill properly. The coffee flavour was great, I made it with a coffee percolator with 3 tablespoons of Gloria Jeans espresso blend coffee and just used 250ml of it.
I was just reading up on how to make this tiramisu better, many people suggest using kahlua or frangelico instead of brandy. I'm sure I'll be trying that pretty soon again :D !