Daring Bakers Follow-Up: Ladyfingers, or Savoiardi

Making the ladyfingers was by far my favorite part of the February tiramisu challenge. I enjoyed it so much that I thought it merited a separate post. I don't really have anything special to say about them, other than a recommendation that if you ever need ladyfingers, you make them yourself instead of purchasing them. 

The recipe required by the Daring Bakers comes from Cordon Bleu at Home. I did think that the cookies tasted just slightly eggy (is that a word?), especially after they had sat out for a while. Fresh out of the oven however, they are deliciously soft and sweet. In the summer, I could imagine serving them as an alternative to tuiles on ice cream. 

The recipe struck me as very similar to macarons, only with egg yolks added and regular flour instead of almond meal. The technique is similar - whip up a stiff meringue and break it down carefully when you add the dry ingredients. Too make ladyfingers, you need the following: 

3 eggs, seperated

6 tablespoons/75gms granulated sugar

3/4 cup all purpose flour

2 tbsp corn starch

6 tablespoons confectioner's sugar

Start by whipping the egg whites into a meringue. Once soft peaks begin to form, gradually add the granulated sugar, and continue to beat the whites until they are stiff. Next fold in the egg yolks until the mixture is blended and pale yellow. 

In a separate bowl, blend the cornstarch and flour. Then sift the flour into the eggs and gently fold it in, being careful not to deflate the mixture too much (just like macarons!). The mixture will be shiny, but not smooth, and quite frankly kind of gross looking when its ready. 

Transfer the batter to a piping bag and pipe out into strips about 3-4 inches long. Sprinkle the piped batter generously with about half of the powdered sugar and allow to sit for about 5 minutes. Then sprinkle with the remaining powdered sugar and bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes on a baking sheet covered in either a silpat or greased parchment paper. 

Though the recipe says that these will keep for a few weeks in an air tight container, as I mentioned above, they definitely taste the best straight out of the oven. While still good after they have been sitting for awhile, I would not recommend eating them without some sort of accompaniment at that point. 

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!