First, start by assembling the ingredients. We'll need one pound of mascarpone cheese, a cup of heavy whipping cream, 1/2 cup granulated sugar, 3 tablespoons rum (brandy also works well), ~20 lady's fingers (a light, oblong italian cookie with powdered sugar on one side), cocoa powder, a double shot (about 2 to 3 ounces) of espresso, 1/2 cup of prepared coffee, and shavings of unsweetened dark chocolate to top (1 oz. should do).Chill whipping cream and bowl. Mix coffee and espresso and chill.
Whisk the whipping cream until it reaches stiff peaks. This can be accomplished in a few minutes with an electric mixer or by hand (times will vary depending on arm strength and stamina).
Put the cheese, sugar, and brandy into a medium bowl and mix until smooth. Add more sugar or alcohol as desired.
Fold in the whipped cream to create the cheese mixture.Latest Articles
Put half the cheese mixture on lady fingers in pan. Smooth with a spatula or spoon.
Sift cocoa powder liberally on surface of layer.
Apply second layer of lady fingers and remaining cheese.
Sift cocoa powder and half of chocolate shavings.Cover in plastic wrap and chill.
To serve, use the remaining chocolate shavings by sprinkling a bit onto eight plates. Cut tiramisu into eight rectangles and serve on plates (or simply spoon them out).Basic Tiramisu (serves 8)
| about 20 lady's fingers | dip | layer & spread twice | cover | |
| 2 shots (2 ounces; 60 mL) espresso | mix & chill | |||
| 1/2 cup (120 mL) coffee | ||||
| 1 cup (240 mL) heavy whipping cream | whisk to stiff peaks | fold | ||
| 1 lb. (455 g) mascarpone cheese | mix | |||
| 1/2 cup granulated sugar | ||||
| 3 tablespoons (44 mL) rum (or brandy) | ||||
| cocoa powder | ||||
| shavings of unsweetened dark chocolate | ||||
Originally the mascarpone is mixed with some egg yolk, but i too prefer not to eat raw egg and take whipped cream instead.
If you've never done a tiramisu before, try it. It is amazing how relatively quickly this ultra delicious desert is done.
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This is the simplest tiramisu that I know how to make and enjoy the results (thus Basic Tiramisu). Cook's Illustrated has an exquisite recipe involving both egg white and egg yolks (cooked for safety) and no espresso (it over powers the layers of flavors they have). It's a few more steps and ingredients than the basic tiramisu presented here. I'll try to dig up a copy of the recipe and post it here.
Would you mind telling us about your background and why you're creating this site? I'd hate to think you were passing off other people's work as your own.
I am a Computer Engineer (currently in the role of a hardware application engineer) who works for a large semiconductor manufacturer in Silicon Valley (San Francisco Bay Area, California). A few years ago, I used to host dinner parties once a week (and later twice a week) to watch "Family Guy" episodes and enjoy good food. Sometimes the dinners (that I would cook for twelve to twenty people at a time) would be excellent and sometimes they didn't come out at all (such as burnt beef stew). Over the last several years I've been cooking in my free time and writing "cheat sheets" on post it notes for quick reference during the cooking process. These "cheat sheets" became the recipe summaries that I have at the end of each recipe article.
This website was started because I needed a repository for cooking info that I wanted to refer to as well as some of my favorite recipes. I used to keep all this information on my Palm through the Memo Pad application. Unfortunately, I was synchronizing Memo Pad with my laptop (on Outlook) and discovered that after three months our Exchange server deletes old Outlook Notes. So, exactly three months after synchronizing all my recipes, they all got deleted and on the next synch, were consequently removed from my Palm. I've been reinventing some recipes and looking of other since and decided to put them online.
I love your idea for presenting recipes, very concise and logical.
Keep up the fantastic work!
I'm also thinking that the potential of this site is being severely limited by its format.
Have you considered opening it up a bit (not completely as its your dream) and making a WIKI of it?
Enable dropdowns of alternatives for each recipe ingredient, and have the encapsulating actions adjust according to the user's selection based on user defined business rules (yes, you must write an interface for defining business rules that people wicked into cooking can learn AND OF COURSE you will implement all the default rules necessary to support three permutations per ingredient (yes, I want to see a report in two days on the system requirements for this endeavor which takes into account the speed in which the average browser can dynamically generate intricately cssed dropdown boxes) using javascript to manipulate your DOM (yes, consistent "cross browser javascripting" is possible).
We need this right away.
I was quite impressed with your site and called my wife down for a quick look. She said it was very good and geeky looking. I said I'm not a geek but I can follow those recipes. (maybe just a little)
I'm also in the programming industry, enjoy cooking but have a hard time following recipe books for some reason. I find myself reading and re-reading recipes while cooking because they are not written in a logical step by step sequence. Your recipe format seems inherently very well structured in a manner that makes it easy to step through the process and not get lost doing so.
Keep the great ideas flowing,
Wayne
ps. Enjoyed your freezing article. Would enjoy reading more of these types of informational articles if you thinking about writing others. Its interesting to get the technical side of why we should or shouldn't be doing something in a certain way.
Btw, I heard from a normally reliable source that this isn't an Italian dish but was invented in a Geneva restaurant about 30-40 years ago.
Can you include metric measures in your recipes?
How about some automation, so I get a browser cookie set that says, "screwy european, give him metric stuff" and if I view a recipe it's automagically converted.
We also measure oven temperatures in celcius, not fahrenheit. The British even have a thing called "gas mark" for gas oven temps.
http://www.dessert.it/
Tiramisł in the picture on the left side, with number 2.
In Italy Tiramisł means "pick me up", maybe because of the high energetic content (eggs, mascarpone, coffee).
Note that tiramisu is often made with stale layfingers, which in my opinion enhances the dish in a most pleasing way.
Bakeries (like the one I used to work at) and most well run kitchens have many uses for foods that can't be sold in their condition (staleness, etc.). Stale bread makes a lovely bread pudding, and if that's too sweet for you, bake it again and grind it up for breadcrumbs.
Also, anyone looking at this site would probably enjoy
"The New Professional Chef", from the CIA (Culinary Institute of America). It's a cooking textbook with scores of useful information about selecting quality equipment, cooking techinques, determining freshness of materials, understanding sauce making, and much more. Being a textbook, most engineers should digest it rapidly.
I can't really say enough about this book. It has a few recepies in it, but not many. It's a book on how to improve cooking skill and understand the basic (and not so basic) cooking principles.
var cheese;
var cream;
var sugar;
var brandy;
var ladys_fingers;
var cocoa_powder;
var expresso;
var coffee;
var chocolate;
var bowl1 = new Bowl;
bowl1->push(cream);
chill(&bowl1);
var coffee_and_espresso = rnd(coffee + espresso);
chill(&coffee_and_espresso);
while (!bowl1->ingredients[cream]->stiff_peaks)
bowl1->whip(WHIPPING_STYLE_BEAT);
var bowl2 = new Bowl;
bow2->push(&cheese);
bow2->push(&sugar);
bow2->push(&brandy);
while (!bowl2->ingredients[cheese]->smooth || !bowl2->ingredients[sugar]->smooth || !bowl2->ingredients[brandy]->smooth)
bowl1->whip(WHIPPING_STYLE_DEFAULT);
for (i = 0; i < bowl2->ingredients.length; i++)
bowl1->push(&bowl2->pop(bowl2->ingredients[i]));
while (!bowl1->folded)
bowl1->whip(WHIPPING_STYLE_FOLD);
var t = GetTickCount();
while (GetTickCount() - t < 3000)
soak(ladys_fingers, expresso);
var pan = new Pan(7, 7);
pan->push(&ladys_fingers);
var cheese_mixture = bowl1->pop(bowl1->ingeredients[0]);
pan->push(&cheese_mixture * 0.5);
if (!pan->ingredients[1]->smooth)
pan->smooth();
pan->push(cocoa_powder);
pan->push(&cheese_mixture * 0.5);
if (!pan->ingredients[3]->smooth)
pan->smooth();
pan->push(cocoa_powder);
pan->push(chocolate * 0.5);
chill(&pan);
What happens to the other half of the chocolate shavings? Munchies for the chef?
Keep up the good work and I think I'll be adding your site to my bookmarks. *two thumbs up*
thanks anyway for the nice recipe. i will try & fwd.
This is what happens when you try to rush out a post during a thirty minute break in a busy convention center.
I've often thought about making tiramisu in small plastic holiday cups, for a dessert reception, but I would need a "chilling tray." I don't know if such a thing exists.
Your recipe seems fine to me, but there are many variations available at http://www.heavenlytiramisu.com/ . If my guests are reasonably sophisticated, I use sherry instead of brandy. (Rum? No, don't think so.)
But most of all USE MASCARPONE! It's really essential, even for a basic-tiramisu...
* Substitute Lady's Fingers with dry sponge cake (We call these "Bizcocho de Soletilla" in Spain, unfortunately I don't know the correct English name)
* Mascarpone can be substituted by any sweet creamy cheese. Philadelphia Cream Cheese works fine.
I find the main trick is not to make it too sweet and use very strong coffee. I also recommend to avoid the chocolate shavings.
Of course, this is just a very cheap knock-off of true Tiramisu, but it is good enough for most purposes.
And now my 2ct to the recipe:
I substitute the mascarpone with stiff (made with fewer liquid, i.e. milk) vanilla blancmange/pudding (I am not sure if the translation is right. My translator has the firm believe that the german "Pudding" translates to "blancmange". In Austria, blancmange is made from almonds (wich would not taste well).).
As topping, I use cocoa powder, leaving the chocolate shavings (as suggested before).
I wouldn't use Amaretto at all. It is to sweet (for me). Perhaps you could use grappa.
Or try to omit the espresso and use for the liquid strawberry-juice mixed with gin and add a layer of strawberrys beetween the ladys fingers. Just heat them with a bit of sugar to make them soft.
Greetings from Berlin, Europe
Martin
it is not meant as a criticism, yours is a great site =) ciao!
Go Hawks!
this is not for engineers only!!!
but housewives too....isn't it????
Shot sizes generally range from 1 fluid ounce to 1.5 fluid ounce depending on where you are (or where your coffee shop originated from). Use whatever you are comfortable with - if everyone in your area sells 1.5 ounce shots, then it's usually best to use 1.5 ounce shots in this recipe since people in your area will associate espresso with more caffeine than someone who drinks one ounce shots.
http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article.php?id=32
I, too, really like your site and recipe diagrams.
Do keep at it, and all the best! :) [/img]
How long must we chill the tiramisu before we can serve? And for how long can we leave it in the fridge? As I am planning to prepare it in advance to save time. Thanks!
I'd estimate the chilling time to be about four hours. It should keep fine in the fridge for up to a week, but it's best the first day after you make it.
you mentioned that you have a recipe from Cook's Illustrated magazine... do you still have it? I had some at a dinner party and it was the BEST Tiramisu i've ever had. Would you please post the recipe if you get a chance? Thanks a million!
where can I find:
1. mascarpone cheese
2. lady's fingers
i dont think they are sold are regular grocery store. can you pls help me?
thx a lot. i really appreciate it.
where can I find:
1. mascarpone cheese
2. lady's fingers
Where do you live? In the U.S., markets like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's keep both products stocked. I have had some success at finding both at Albertson's and Safeway. The best prices for these items are at Trader Joe's.
Nevertheless, the best place to buy marscapone is Trader Joe's. My local grocery store (QFC) carries marscapone, but it's almost $5 for an 8oz container. I just bought marscapone at Trader Joe's today and the exact same brand (Bel Giosio) was $2.59.
Hope this helps!
Espresso is fairly easy to come by, even the canned double shot espresso from Starbucks in most supermarkets should work if you can't get fresh brewed.
As to the rum, rum is probably one of the most produced liquors out there. Should be easy to find many types in a supermarket. Personally when I made this recipe last week I used Godiva Chocolate Liqueur instead of rum. Came out fantastic.
Oh and thank you Mr. Michael Chu for preparing this recipe. It was my first time making Tiramisu and I used your recipe and modified about 3 things of my own and it came out great. My modifications were: Madeleine cookies instead of ladyfingers, fresh brewed starbucks espresso to dip the cookies in, and Godiva Chocolate liqueur. Everything else I followed your recipe for, except I only used the cocoa powder on the top layer, and not in the middle.
Thanks again for the recipe, was quite tasty at the party and everyone loved it.
I could only find expensive marscapone, so instead I used instant vanilla pudding (made with milk, as per instructions) plus a container of whipped cream cheese (stirred into the pudding mixture). Also, since I had coffee liquer, I used that to dip the lady-fingers into. I layered the above ingredients (was out of cocoa) and shaved chocolate on top.
Simple and delicious, but since it wasn't the "official" way, and since my name is "Rammy" (rhymes with Tommy), I called it ti-Rammy-su. ;-)
I subsequently found your wonderful page, with the easier to follow instructions (vs other sites), I will soon try again following a this more traditional recipe.
Thanks for a cool and practical website!
I find your screen formatting for the recipe card great. I like how the connectors (lines) morf with the window size. However, If I'm going to bring up the recipe card, it's going to be to print out on a 3x5 card (or whatever the larger size is). The only way I can get the recipe card to print with the screen formatting is to screen copy (or window copy), paste into a photo program, crop and print. Printing, select/copy/pasting or select/copy/printing selection from the browser all lose the connectors and print only text.
There is currently a problem with the printing of the recipe card. I am working to fix this problem. Sorry for any inconvenience.
Updated: Aug. 8, 2007 - Thanks to reader Isaac L., the error has been found and corrected. You can now print the recipe cards with the formating intact.
I found marscapone to be rather expensive here in the Kansas City area
so used the substitute which is cream cheese and whipped cream.
It is difficult blending the cream cheese to obtain a creamy consistency
(ie: to remove the lumps) therefore when you use the marscapone
substitute recipe use the whipped cream cheese product which will blend
more readily with the whipped cream.
Another point, it is easy to introduce too much liquid into the recipe when
you soak the lady fingers in the coffee. A work around may be to sprinkle
the dry coffee granules on the lady fingers, instead of dipping them.
[u:02ea24b7ba]thank you[/u:02ea24b7ba]
love it
:)
I read the recipe and am bit too excited to make it..but 2 major ingredients i.e. Mascarpone cheese and lady fingers are not readily available in Indian markets.. can i use cream cheese instead??..and any subsitute for lady fingers?
Would be glad if you could solve my querry. Thanks!!
I might sound stupid but just want to make sure.
The substitue for mascarpone cheese would be cream cheese with milk.
Meaning...mixing those two together until they are...smooth, creamy?