Tiramisu - the bestestest dessert ever!

When it comes to desserts, Tiramisu is all I need. Yes, need! If I had it my way, I could have it morning, noon, and night - everyday. Yes, I have done a few days of Tiramisu morning, noon, and night and those days were few of the most memorable in my life! I learnt how to make tiramisu from an Italian friend's Mom, an experience I can never forget. It was the winter of 2010, when I decided to make it again for my friends to celebrate our first white Christmas together. For the lack of reasoning for proportions, we filled my friend's fridge with buckets and buckets of Tiramisu and relished it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. For whatever amazing reason, this bucket of joy comes in only large sizes in my kitchen :)

2 months ago we spent a few weeks at the Amalfi coast and Tuscany. Needless to say, I had tiramisu each possible evening. What I then learnt was that Tiramisu is not native to the entire country of Italy, but just the region around Tuscany and Veneto. If I'm to believe Wikipedia, Tiramisu originated from the Veneto region and was named after the maiden name of the confectioner's apprentice, who helped him come up with this recipe. I must admit, I didn't have an evenly fulfilling experience in each restaurant that I tried tiramisu in Italy so far, but the ones that delighted me are certainly to be revisited in life. The trick is to visit the pastry shops in the Veneto region, and across the Amalfi region, settle for a lemon based dessert please!

Maybe this diversity is a reflection of the fact that there are a zillion tiramisu recipes in the world, and the original recipes are actually made with raw eggs, something that one may not safely be able to eat everywhere. I used raw eggs in mine, but alternatively, one can heat the egg yolks a bit to form a custard, and use whipped & sweetened cream instead of the raw egg white. And when it comes to dipping those ladyfingers, only the best espresso can be trusted! I prepared a bath of 8 shots of the strongest espresso I could prepare and dunked the ladyfingers in it. I usually prepare very moist layers, but because we have to eat this bucket throughout the week, I thought I'd start with a sort-of dry centre and allow it to get spongier over the days. Also, the recipe served at Jamie's Italian inspired me to drizzle some orange zest into the creamy egg white and mascarpone mix and it worked wonders!

I think the dessert for this week is all set, and what a way to start our week! Happy week everyone! :) 

Serves: 8-10 dessert portions

Time to prepare: 20 minutes

Time to set: Overnight

Ingredients

1. 3 Eggs
2. 300g Mascarpone cheese
3. 1/2 cup Confectioner's sugar
4. 1/2 Cocoa powder
5. 7-8 shots of Espresso
6. Zest of 2 Oranges
7. 2 packs of Ladyfingers

Method

1. Separate the egg white and egg yolks
2. In a mixing bowl, whisk the egg yolks until they form stiff peaks
3. In a separate mixing bowl, whisk the egg yolks until they develop a creamy texture. Add the cheese, sugar, and orange zest and combine.
4. Softly fold the egg yolk mixture into the egg white mixture.
5. Dunk the ladyfingers into the cooled espresso one by one and place them on the serving dish in a layer form. Make sure the orientation of ladyfingers in the consecutive layers are orthogonal to each other to retain the mass while serving.
6. Using a spatula, gently pour the egg mix and flatten to form a thin layer (about 1/2 cm) on the lady fingers. 
7. Dust a layer of cocoa powder on the egg mixture
8. Repeat steps 5-7 until 3 layers of ladyfingers-egg mixture-cocoa powder have been organized
9. Set aside in the fridge overnight for the tiramisu to set
10. Serve with an additional dusting of cocoa powder! Oh yeahhhhhh!