The Daring Bakers Challenge, February 2010: Tiramisu

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.

I haven't been baking as much lately. It has been a little strange, but I think I just don't "need" to as much as before. My new job is keeping me pretty occupied, and most importantly, making me think again. In fact, I find myself excited enough about upcoming work related challenges that I don't feel as much of a strong need to channel my productive energy into flour and sugar. It actually took quite a bit of effort for me to motivate myself to get started with the February challenge. 

This was actually quite the laborious task. I had always wanted to make tiramisu, but it just seemed like a little too much work for something that the Italian bakery down the street already does quite well. Going forward, I think I am going to leave the tiramisu to the bakery. While it was quite satisfying to pull of such a complicated dessert in my own kitchen, I am not sure that mine will ever taste as good as their's. Each component that I made tasted good on its own, but when put together I felt that the dessert lacked that rich coffee flavor that is so prominent in the best tiramisus. 

The interesting thing about tiramisu, is that none of the individual components are particularly difficult. You need pastry cream, whipped cream, some mascarpone and lady fingers, espresso and zabaglione. Simple right? It's simple when you only need to make one or two of those items. Making all of them for a simple dessert means that tiramisu prep can take days. 

A few days before I planned to assemble the tiramisu I prepared the lady fingers and the mascarpone cheese. I think that home made mascarpone is quickly becoming one of my favorites. I took the leftovers that did not make it into the tiramisu and whipped them in my stand mixer with a handful of chives. Voila - home made chive cream cheese for bagels! 

The pastry cream, whipped cream, mascarpone and zabaglione come together very easily with a rubber spatula. My mixture was a creamy white color with a very runny, soupy texture. I think the heat in my kitchen caused it to liquefy some. The mixture did firm up some when spread into my pan and cooled in the fridge, but melted again pretty quickly when removed from the fridge for serving. 

I selected some three inch spring form pans to assemble my tiramisu(s). The pans were only deep enough for two layers of ladyfingers and cream, so I had a lot of ingredients left over. To assemble, prepare a mixture of warm espresso and rum extract. Quickly dip the lady fingers into the espresso mixture and then use them to line the bottom of the pan. Cover the layer of lady fingers with the pastry cream/mascarpone mixture. Repeat with another layer of lady fingers and pastry cream. 

Once assembled, the tiramisus to the fridge to chill overnight. This step is necessary for the desserts to firm up enough to cut. Once tiramisus have hardened enough, remove them from the fridge, garnish them with some cocoa powder, slice, and serve!

Recipes after the jump!

TIRAMISU Ingredients

(Recipe source: Carminantonio's Tiramisu from The Washington Post, July 11 2007 )
This recipe makes 6 servings

Zabaglione:
2 large egg yolks
3 tablespoons sugar/50gms
1/4 cup/60ml Marsala wine (or port or coffee)
1/4 teaspoon/ 1.25ml vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

Heat water in a double boiler. If you don’t have a double boiler, place a pot with about an inch of water in it on the stove. Place a heat-proof bowl in the pot making sure the bottom does not touch the water.
In a large mixing bowl (or stainless steel mixing bowl), mix together the egg yolks, sugar, the Marsala (or espresso/ coffee), vanilla extract and lemon zest. Whisk together until the yolks are fully blended and the mixture looks smooth.
Transfer the mixture to the top of a double boiler or place your bowl over the pan/ pot with simmering water. Cook the egg mixture over low heat, stirring constantly, for about 8 minutes or until it resembles thick custard. It may bubble a bit as it reaches that consistency.
Let cool to room temperature and transfer the zabaglione to a bowl. Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight, until thoroughly chilled.

Vanilla pastry cream:
1/4 cup/55gms sugar
1 tablespoon/8gms all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon/ 2.5ml vanilla extract
1 large egg yolk
3/4 cup/175ml whole milk

Mix together the sugar, flour, lemon zest and vanilla extract in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan. To this add the egg yolk and half the milk. Whisk until smooth.
Now place the saucepan over low heat and cook, stirring constantly to prevent the mixture from curdling.
Add the remaining milk a little at a time, still stirring constantly. After about 12 minutes the mixture will be thick, free of lumps and beginning to bubble. (If you have a few lumps, don’t worry. You can push the cream through a fine-mesh strainer.)
Transfer the pastry cream to a bowl and cool to room temperature. Cover with plastic film and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight, until thoroughly chilled.