Tiramisu

As you may know, this year for my birthday I skipped dinner and went straight to dessert, pausing along the way only to make a tiramisu, which is something I do on occasion, just because I can. I had already separated the eggs and was about the beat in the sugar when I thought of taking pictures of the whole process, because whenever I say I’ve made a tiramisu, people go “YOU MADE THIS?” and I feel compelled to say that it’s actually a super easy recipe and takes more time (and enough cash to spend on the moderately expensive ingredients) than talent. If I can do this, you can do this—and I will just say before we go to the pictures that I know of at least one case in which a tiramisu made by me resulted in someone having sex the very night they shared it with someone else. (That person, I’m sorry to report, was not actually me, but still. Keep it in mind.) Also, if you bring it to work or whatever you can tell people that “tiramisu” means, literally, “pick-me-up” and that’s something for you to discuss around the watercooler or whatever.

Okay, so at this point I’d separated the 6 necessary eggs and was just about to add some sugar when I thought Hey I’ll Take Pictures. I just put in a couple teaspoons of raw sugar (because that’s what was in my sugar bowl) because this, for me, is more of a creamy dessert than a sweet dessert, and anyway the cookies have sugar in them so it all works out.

(Please note, by the way, the fantastic 70s-era hand mixer than belonged to Rachael’s grandmother and still works fantastically, even if it requires some serious upper body strength to operate.)

Now, having put the unbeaten egg whites in the fridge while you’re continuing working with the yolks, grab the non-Italian Mascarpone-style cheese (I think that’s a kilogram there) and beat it on in. While the cheese doesn’t have to be physically from the boot I do think you should try to use something that says “mascarpone” on it, not crème fraiche or Philadephia cream cheese or anything like that.

It gets, as you can sort of see here, significantly thicker and heavier and if you’re smart you’ll stop at least once and scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure everything gets mixed in.

Then you put the yolk-n-cheese back in the fridge (we had to clear out a whole shelf for this operation, I hasten to warn you, although if you have an American-sized fridge you may not need to go to such lengths) and whip up those egg whites. Vroooom!

Fold them into the other mixture and that’s the cheese mix. Pop that back into the fridge and get started on the cookies. I always use ladyfingers, by the way, which are sometimes called Savoiardi cookies. I think tiramisu is way better (and way easier) using those as opposed to sponge cake. I always get the big package, with like 24 cookies in it, even though you don’t really need that many because obviously it’s better to have extras than to have to make yet another trip to Moore Wilson’s on the bus.

At some point during this whole process you will have made up a bowl or so of espresso. I don’t have a coffee maker (because actually tiramisu is one of a very few ways I ingest coffee at all) so I just used some fancy espresso crystals, which I understand many people wouldn’t actually use to make coffee that you’d drink but since we used made-in-New-Zealand cheese I think it’s okay to use crystals instead of ask for six shots of espresso in a big cup from the local café. I have done that in the past, by the way, and if you choose that route make sure to ask them to save the shot and put a little water in the cup for the bus ride home. The coffee doesn’t have to be hot when you use it to dip the cookies, though—in fact it’s a little better if it isn’t freshly made because the cookies will hold together a little better when you’re trying to get them into the glass dish. You should make more than you think you’ll need—and make it about as twice as strong as you’d think you’d need, too.

You’ll notice that a giant disembodied hand with regrettably ragged cuticles is pouring some sort of amber liquid into the bowl of coffee. That is one of two mini-bottles of rum I got at the liquor store, as I didn’t feel like buying a whole big bottle for tiramisu-making purposes. You are technically, I think, supposed to use marsala wine for this—I’ve been told that that’s better but I’m the last person in the world to even be able to tell the difference between the two, so I use the thing that comes in the littler bottles. If you do use rum make sure it’s caramel-colored and not a flavored kind. Anyway, throw that in there, however much you want, and then get ready to dunk.

This is about the hardest step in this whole process, dunking the cookies. This picture doesn’t really show you how quickly you have to do it—ladyfingers are super delicate and are basically all air, so if you leave them in the coffee—especially if it’s still hot—they’ll just turn into mush at the bottom of the bowl, when what you want is for them to turn to mush in the bottom of the tiramisu dish instead. So just get in and get out; the cookie should still be firm enough to hold it long enough to put it in the dish. You will know, believe me, if you have dunked too long. This is another excellent reason to have extra cookies on hand.

You’ve smidged just the thinnest layer of the cheese mix on the bottom of whatever dish you’re using to make your delicious raw-egg confection, so as soon as you dunk each cookie lay it on in there. You’ll notice my glass roasting dish wasn’t wide enough for two rows of ladyfingers so I just nipped off the ends of the ones in the second row and used the short bits to fill in between the rows, which I think just adds to the eventual yumminess.

Okay, and then when the dish is all covered in soggy cookies, pour on about half the cheese mixture. Dunk some more cookies and make another layer on top of the cheese.

You see I went for sort of a different formation here in terms of cookie placement. Whatever works for you.

(Is it just me or do the dunked ladyfingers look a lot like sausages?)

And then—you have probably guessed where this is going—pour on the rest of the cheese mix. Depending on the size of your dish it may get a little sloppy and overcrowded but that’s okay, just get as much in there as you can.

Now here is the part of this entry where there are no more pictures and you have to rely on my way with words and visualize the rest of this recipe. Deep breath now. So when you’ve made it this far, you can relax because ideally (well, at least to my tastes) you want to refrigerate this thing at least overnight. I guess if you were in a hurry you could get away with a couple of hours though. I just think you want it as set as possible, and also you want the coffee/rum mixture to totally saturate the cookies you have dunked so carefully and completely disintegrate them into a mush of wonderfulness. So the point is, make this mostly the day ahead. It took me about two hours to do all this, start to finish and including cleanup, so that’s not really that bad, considering you don’t even have to turn on the oven.

And then the next evening, when you’re just about ready to serve it, whip up some heavy cream (I just used one small bottle) and spread it over the top, and then take some baker’s cocoa (you could also finely grate some dark chocolate on there) and tap it through a sieve all over the whole thing. And that’s it, you’re done! Accept your accolades graciously, never mentioning the fact that you have basically just made a big…casserole.

This is the part when I should have a picture of myself in, like, an apron, holding my finished tiramisu and smiling sweetly at the camera. Unfortunately I temporarily misplaced my camera at that stage of the game (I misplaced it in my purse, of course) and so I can only encourage you to try this super yummy thing yourself, because it’s your birthday or because you’re hoping for muchas smooches or because you’ve been looking for a more efficient booze-coffee-cheese-cookie-chocolate delivery system…or just because you need a little pick-me-up.