Tiramisu

Tiramisu is a widely popular coffee-flavoured Italian dessert, with the literal meaning of ‘cheer me up’. I concur!

The traditional dish is made from a concise ingredients list, but with flexibility for adding one’s flare. Ladyfinger biscuits (a dry sweet sponge) are dipped into coffee. These are then layered with a whipped yellowy, rich, velvety mix of eggs, sugar and mascarpone cheese, flavoured with cocoa powder. Sometimes alcohol is added, often marsala a sweet, delectable, red wine. When constructing, a rectangular or square pan works well for ’tiling’ the skinny uniformed rectangular ladyfingers – but a round dish is more traditional!

Flavour-wise expect a spoonful to be sweet, but not overly, and balanced with just the right amount of bitterness from the cocoa and coffee. It’s a marriage of flavours – together they link, more robust and developed as one.

We ate much tiramisu in Italy. These were from a must-visit in Rome, ZUM, who we visited twice.