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079. Tiramisu (recipe)

Tiramisu is an Italian dessert based on mascarpone cheese. The cake isn't baked but chilled in the fridge. In texture tiramisu is soft, like a pudding.
It's considered one of the most popular desserts in the world. It's served not only in Italian restaurants but in places with other cuisines too. There are variations and adaptations of the traditional recipe under which tiramisu may resemble a pudding or a cake. Sometimes another flavouring, say strawberry or lemon, is used instead of coffee.

I made an almost classic coffee-flavoured tiramisu. Photos and recipe under the cut!

Warning! The original tiramisu recipe uses raw hen's eggs. If you're afraid of salmonella, you can use quail eggs. It won't affect the taste — just remember that one hen's egg equals five quail eggs. Also, as I wrote in the cheesecake recipe, mascarpone can be replaced with "Omichka" or "Viola" cheese, cottage cheese or full-fat sour cream. The point is that mascarpone is very rich — 80% fat — so pick something close. Instead of savoiardi biscuits you can either buy sponge cake layers and cut them into equal rectangles, or a biscuit of similar shape (it must soak up liquid very well) — lady fingers, for example.
The recipe also uses chilled coffee. In principle instant coffee will do, but not "3-in-1". The coffee must be very cold, because in warm coffee the biscuits go soggy instantly.

Cooking time ≈ 1 + 8 hours.

Ingredients:

4 hen's eggs (20 quail eggs)
100 g sugar
500 g mascarpone
250 g savoiardi biscuits (≈ 34 pieces)
350 ml coffee
cocoa powder
2–3 tbsp wine/rum/liqueur/brandy/cognac — optional.

First separate the whites from the yolks.

Then beat the yolks with the sugar (or whisk with a blender).

Add the cheese to the yolks and mix (better not to whisk, but to mix thoroughly and gently).

Separately whip the whites into stiff peaks.

Fold the whites thoroughly into the cheese mixture (don't whisk!). Do this very gently and never with a mixer.

Add the liqueur or brandy to the chilled coffee and stir. Dip the savoiardi into the coffee on one side (the side dusted with icing sugar). Pack them tightly into the dish, soaked side up. By the way, dip very quickly and carefully — the biscuits go soggy fast.