Tiramisu classico al caffe....the story so far

The equipment in our kitchen could be described as basic at best. However armed with a new barbantia whisk from our local supermarket Esselunga, which had made it back in the basket of my bike, I made my first attempt at the classic Italian 'Dolce' Tiramisu (literally translated as Pull Me Up).

Valentina Harris (this plus the River Cafe vegetable cook book are the only ones that we have with us) calls for the following ingredients:

400g Mascarpone cheese
4 eggs seperated
4 tablespoons caster sugar
2 teaspoons espresso coffee
8 tablespoons weak coffee
6 tablespoons rum, brandy or Marsala
about 20 bourdoir or saviardi biscuits
2 teaspoons cocoa powder
2 teaspoons finely ground coffee

This serves 6, I reduced the quantities by half, because as you all know The Seffalice has a small appetite.

Thank goodness she uses spoons rather than weights (except bizarley for the Mascarpone, as we don't have any scales). Firstly the Mascarpone is softend and the beaten egg yolks and sugar are gradually added, using my shiny new whisk, during this process at least a quarter was dropped on the floor, due to the shallowness of my plastic bowl which is also melted on one side, presumbably during some culinary catastrophe experience by a previous tenant.

The espresso is then added to the Mascarpone, the coffee here ROCKS, there are no starbucks, and we have one of those stove top coffee pots, apparently the same as one that Rol had at Burnley Rd that always made the stove dirty when he forgot about it and it overflowed. It's good stuff, very strong!

It was at this stage that I read the recipe properly and realised that I had to whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks....by hand! I would like to think that doing this is the 'proper' way, and a sign of a true chef, in reality not having an electric whisk rather annoyed me, and my arm got tired. This is then folded into the cheese mixture.

Then the bourdoir biscuits (if you're Emily and Graham you can make your own boudoir biscuits in your antique tin – you will need to find your own recipe) are dipped into the weak coffee and, we opted for Marsala – mainly because it was the cheapest one in Esselunga, and layered onto the bottom of the tin followed by a layer of the cheese mixture, a second layer of biscuits and another layer of cheese mixture, the cocoa and coffee are sprinkled ontop the dish is then 'bashed' to settle the layers and left in the fridge for at least 3 hours, prefferably overnight.

The verdict
Very delicious, needs more booze and coffee – will continue to experiment until I've found the perfect quantities!