Saturday, February 27, 2010

Tiramisu has layers...

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. Has anyone see Shrek? I love donkey. Who doesn't right? Does anyone remember this dialog? For your information, there's a lot more to ogres than people think. "Example?" (donkey) "Example. OK, er, ogres are like... onions! " (Shrek) "They stink?" (donkey) "Yes. No! [...] Onions have layers! Ogres have layers. D'you get it? We both have layers!" (Shrek) "Oh, you both have layers. You know not everybody like onions! Eh, cakes! Everybody loves cakes! Cakes have layers!" (donkey) "I don't care what everyone likes! Ogres are not like cakes." (Shrek) Every time I begin to make a cake or a layered dessert, I think of that dialog.

So this month's challenge was to build a tiramisu. Not just build it, but to make each of the components that go into this dessert. There are three main componets:

First you need your ladyfingers/Savoiardi biscuits. Super easy to make. Very tasty. A little too tasty that I had to make a second batch. I ate one too many with the first batch that I didn't have enough to make the tiramisu. :)

Second, you need your tiramisu filling (zabaglione,vanilla pastry cream, mascarpone cheese )
I was all on top of photo taking and I took a picture of the zabaglione cream, but totally forgot the vanilla pastry cream and mascarpone cheese. It was about 10pm when I finished this and I was pooped. Both the zabaglione and vanilla pastry cream were a cinch to make. The mascarpone cheese I was a bit worried. My cheese seemed a bit watery. Luckily, I read online that it would firm up once it is chilled. I also added mini chocolate chips to my filling to give it bit of a party in the mouth when you bite into it.

Third, you need a espresso for dipping your ladyfingers and cocoa powder to finish the cake off.

First layer down.
And presto! Wait a second...a piece is missing??


Oh there it is!

I was too anxious to wait a few hours to eat. That is why the tiramisu is a bit floppy. What a fun and tasty challenge. I hope my co-workers will enjoy this treat. :)

1 comments:

Lauren said...

Your tiramisu looks great =D. I was thisclose to pulling it out really early, or not even chilling it at all!