Last year for my birthday, I made tiramisu for the first time. It wasn’t the worst but had a lot of room for improvement. This past weekend, I made it again, and was so much tastier! The right ratio of the cookie to cream and not an overpowering flavor of coffee or rum.
What is tiramisu?
Tiramisu is a layered cake with ladyfinger cookies ( Italian name is savoiardi) dipped in a coffee and rum mixture with a creamy filling in between. It’s a no-bake cake, so you get all the components together then assemble it.
I’ve heard people call ladyfingers a cake and a cookie. They’re more like a cookie before dipping them in the coffee mixture, but they become soft and spongy like a cake afterwards. But, in this post, I’ll call them cookies.
The creamy part of the cake is mainly made up of egg yolks, mascarpone cheese, and whipped cream. I cooked the egg yolks, stir in the sugar and let it cool. After it’s cooled down, I beat the cheese in until smooth and then fold in the whipped cream.
The coffee mixture is the easiest part. You make some coffee, put a bit of rum, give it a little stir, and you’re done with that.
Assembling is easy, but messy and can take some time. This past weekend took even longer than usual, but I’ll go into that later on. It’s a two-layered cake; first put a layer of cookies at the bottom (quickly dip into the coffee mixture first), a layer of the cream mixture, one more cookie layer, and a final cream layer. You can add the cocoa powder on top then to let it soak in, but I always do it right before it’s served.
That’s it! It’s a pretty simple dessert; just different components that might make it look scary and time-consuming. Now off to my experiences making it.
Making it for the first time:
I made tiramisu for the first time in 2020 for my birthday. For a long time, I knew I wanted to make it; it sounded so good! I’ve only had tiramisu cheesecake before, but not the real thing.
I started planning when I would make the cookies and the other parts. I made the cookies a day ahead to help them dry out of bit, but in the end, I don’t think they did dry out much if at all. Then the next day I made the cream part and assembled it all and let it sit overnight.
So I started the process two days in advance of when I would serve it. Tiramisu is a cake where you can let sit in the fridge and it will get better and better. While it sits, the cookie is soaking in the coffee mixture. It is also served best when it’s cold, so the more it sits in the fridge the colder it will be! Meaning, making a big tiramisu and having leftovers in the fridge isn’t a bad thing. 😉
Overall the first cake wasn’t bad. I did put way too much cocoa powder on top before I served it, but besides that, it tasted as it should!
Making it the second time:
Making the tiramisu a second time was a little different. I cheated and used store-bought ladyfingers. That weekend was packed already, so I think it’s okay to do that sometimes to make the job a bit easier.
I ended up making three different tiramisus; an adult one (in a 9×13 dish), a kid-friendly one (aka no rum, in an 8×8 dish), and a gluten-free one (in a little glass dish). It came all together and came out even better than the first time.
The night that I made the cake, I was also babysitting my nephew, so I had to multitask a bit. He woke up, then eventually fell back asleep. But I was so nervous about waking him up, I did a very weird thing.
At this point, I have the coffee mixture ready, eggs cooked and cooled. So the next step was to beat the mascarpone cheese into the eggs. I tried to just use a whisk, but that was not doing the trick whatsoever.
So, I took my bowl of eggs and lumpy cheese, and my beater outside to the front porch and mixed everything in there. I think it was about 9:30 at night and all I was thinking was, “what will the neighbors think of me”? It all ended well; got a smooth mixture and a sleeping nephew.
The next step was to make the whipped cream. I started off strong with my old fashion egg beater but that ended just after a few minutes. Then, still trying to avoid the electric mixer, I tried a whisk. I’m sure it would have worked fine if it was half or one cup of heavy whipping cream, but no. This was more like four cups, so it was going to take a while.
I gave up and just used my electric mixer. Much much better, so glad electric mixers were invented! I got my whipped cream done and my nephew didn’t wake up while I was whipping the cream, so it’s going good.
Then, I sat up my station and started assembling! I started with the kid version because that didn’t have the rum. Then after I finished, I added the rum to the coffee and made the other two. By then, it was getting close to 10 o’clock, and was so tired. But I stepped back and looked at my three beautiful tiramisus.
Just had to wait the next day to taste them!
When that day came, it was so good! The perfect balance of everything and oh so good! I think part of the reason it came out better than the first time is the cookies. The cookies I made weren’t the best, but these store-bought ones were really good. The cake was super creamy and nice and chilled. I can’t wait for another occasion to make another round of tiramisu. Though, really I don’t really need a special occasion to make it, right?
~Becky 🙂
This is one of my favorite desserts when out, but I have never tried it at home, because I never have rum in the house.