This months’ Daring Bakers challenge was to make tiramisu – from scratch. Including making the marscapone cheese, the ladyfinger biscuits, and the three types of cream that mix together to make the creamy layer.
Well, despite loving tiramisu, I didn’t complete the challenge. I don’t mind putting aside a whole afternoon to the daring bakers, but I just haven’t had time this month for the two or three evenings that this recipe would take.
So I didn’t do the daring bakers.
But I did make tiramisu!
Last night I made the ladyfinger biscuits from the daring bakers recipe. I was nervous to do it because the recipe was so explicit not to overbeat the batter. And it involved piping the fingers which I had not done before (I used a sandwich bag with the corner snipped off!)
But here they are and me feeling very pleased with myself!
And then because I wasn’t going to use the daring bakers recipe, I went to the BBC Good Food page and found this recipe… “Best-ever Tiramisu”. Well, with a title like that, I decided it was worth a try!
It took me just the amount of time it took Rasmus to finish up the delicious puff-pastry wrapped pork he made for dinner, to mix the cream and rum (hey, I didn’t have any marsala!) and marscapone, and then to layer it all together with my beautiful ladyfingers and some Green & Blacks maya gold chocolate.
And it did taste pretty delicious, if I do say so myself… 🙂
Here’s the ladyfingers recipe from the Daring Baker’s challenge for those of you who want to try it:
LADYFINGERS/ SAVOIARDI BISCUITS
(Source: Recipe from Cordon Bleu At Home)
This recipe makes approximately 24 big ladyfingers or 45 small (2 1/2″ to 3″ long) ladyfingers.
Ingredients:
3 eggs, separated
6 tablespoons /75gms granulated sugar
3/4 cup/95gms cake flour, sifted (or 3/4 cup all purpose flour + 2 tbsp corn starch)
6 tablespoons /50gms confectioner’s sugar,
Method:
Preheat your oven to 350 F (175 C) degrees, then lightly brush 2 baking sheets with oil or softened butter and line with parchment paper.
Beat the egg whites using a hand held electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Gradually add granulate sugar and continue beating until the egg whites become stiff again, glossy and smooth.
In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks lightly with a fork and fold them into the meringue, using a wooden spoon. Sift the flour over this mixture and fold gently until just mixed. It is important to fold very gently and not overdo the folding. Otherwise the batter would deflate and lose volume resulting in ladyfingers which are flat and not spongy.
Fit a pastry bag with a plain tip (or just snip the end off; you could also use a Ziploc bag) and fill with the batter. Pipe the batter into 5″ long and 3/4″ wide strips leaving about 1″ space in between the strips.
Sprinkle half the confectioner’s sugar over the ladyfingers and wait for 5 minutes. The sugar will pearl or look wet and glisten. Now sprinkle the remaining sugar. This helps to give the ladyfingers their characteristic crispness.
Hold the parchment paper in place with your thumb and lift one side of the baking sheet and gently tap it on the work surface to remove excess sprinkled sugar.
Bake the ladyfingers for 10 minutes, then rotate the sheets and bake for another 5 minutes or so until the puff up, turn lightly golden brown and are still soft.
Allow them to cool slightly on the sheets for about 5 minutes and then remove the ladyfingers from the baking sheet with a metal spatula while still hot, and cool on a rack.
Store them in an airtight container till required. They should keep for 2 to 3 weeks.
