Tiramisu - Italian Layer Cake
Ingredients
Serves 8
- 5 egg yolks
- 50 g (2 oz) icing sugar
- 500 g (18 oz) mascarpone
- 1 tbsp grand marnier
- 24 ladyfingers
- 3 tsp cocoa
- 4 dl (1½ cup) coffee - strong, cold
Directions
Beat the egg yolks and icing sugar until creamy.
Add the mascarpone and the Grand Marnier. Stir thoroughly. Taste the cream. It may well be that there should be an extra splash of Grand Marnier. Heck take a glass and acup of coffee yourself.
Your cream may very well be rather runny at this point, but that will not matter, it'll stiffen up again as it cools, and the ladyfingers suck the liquid out of cheese cream.
Pour some coffee in a small dish, or a pan, for dipping the lady fingers. I fill it at the height of ½ lady finger. That way I know I can let them touch the bottom and not be completely covered in coffee. As I said, I don't like the coffee flavour too strong.
Dunk the lady fingers into the coffee. Quickly up and down. Let them rest in the coffee for ½ second or something like that. They soak very quickly.
Add alternating layers of mascarpone and cream. End the top of the cake of with a layer of mascarpone. Put a sprinkle of cocoa on each layer of mascarpone.
Finish with a layer of mascarpone cream.
My layering is usually:
--- top ---
cocoa (just before serving)
mascarpone
lady fingers
cocoa
mascarpone
lady fingers
mascarpone
--- bottom ---
Let it cool in the fridge for at least 4 hours.
Just before serving, sprinkle it with sifted cocoa powder.
Serve with coffee and a small glass of Grand Marnier.
