Heaven on a dessert plate~Tiramisu- DK Challenge February 2010

DARING BAKER CHALLENGE FEBRUARY, 2010 ~ Heaven on a Dessert Plate!

Tiramisu- A creamy and rich dessert made up of layers of sponge fingers, zabaglione and cream. It can be is flavoured with marsala wine or espresso coffee.

The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking.

They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.

The complete recipe for the Tiramisu can be found here:

Mascarpone Cheese – Vera’s Recipe (Baking Obsession) for Homemade Mascarpone Cheese.

Savoiardi/ Ladyfinger Biscuits – Recipe from Cordon Bleu At Home

Tiramisu – Carminantonio's Tiramisu from The Washington Post, July 11 2007

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I tried the egg less version for the lady finger biscuits and substituted the alcohol with coffee

EGGLESS LADYFINGERS (Source: Adapted from Recipezaar)

This recipe makes about 4 long biscuits (3" long and 3/4" wide).

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons/ 55gms sugar
1 teaspoon/ 5ml vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups/ 340gms unsalted butter
2 cups/ 250gms all purpose flour
1/2 cup/ 40gms coarsely ground almonds
powdered sugar

Blend all the ingredients well and adding the coarsely ground nuts last. Scrape the batter into a piping bag with a 3/4" plain tip and pipe into fingers about 3" long at 1" intervals onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake them in a 300 degree F (150 C) oven for 30 to 45 minutes till they start turning slightly brown at the edges.

Take them out of the oven and cool on tray for about 5 minutes and then move the biscuits to a cooling rack. When slightly cool, roll them in powdered sugar. Store in an airtight container till required.

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The assembling of the tiramisu involved dipping the sponge fingers in coffee and layering them in a dish with the Zabaglione and cream mixture.I found that if the biscuits were over soaked they collapsed very easily so utmost care was needed at this stage.The making of the mascarpone and the zabaglione was straightford although a lot of eggs were required in the recipe.

I assembled my tiramisu in a square glass dish and once it has chilled cut it into miniature bitesize pieces and placed them in cake cases. I think the presentation would have worked far better if I had layered the ingredients in a wine glass.The dessert tasted lovely but to make all the stages from scratch it took over a week to get every ingredient prepared and ready.

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Nanaima Bars-DK challenge January 2010.