Egg-less Tiramisu

Let me tell you what is my next love. Tiramisu!!

 Of all the types of cakes I have tasted though not attempted to bake, Tiramisu scores a high top 3. In fact, safely the first in place.

I like the way the cocoa marries the coffee, and the light fluffy mascarpone custard, with that hint of coffee in the lady fingers sponge biscuits. It is utterly yum, yum and yum.

My boys tasted one forbidden spoonful at Pepperoni one fateful afternoon, and they fell madly in love. So I silently swear I shall attempt to make this one day soon, hopefully it will pass the jury's taste buds and make it for this Christmas. I shall omit the liquor but never mind the coffee. Whahahaha... I can always dope them later with other concoction. Evil evil.

We all must know, Tiramisu is Italian. It is an Italian trifle dessert, coz of its layers. It is translated to mean "pick me up". Quite rightly so, with the Masala / Rum / Tia Maria / Kahlua, and the strong coffee / espresso, and not forgetting the good quality cocoa powder for dusting. It should really 'perk you up right'!

A brief search online yielded very diverse recipes. Some used egg yolks, use used whole egg, some are eggless... Some use whipping cream along with mascarpone, whilst others did not. Some steps are so complicated, and others make it look literally like a piece of cake. I was truly lost. Even recipes from trustworthy blog-bakers like Stephanie, Gordon, Nigella, Ree differ! From their list of cast to the steps involved. Argh...

After A LOT of studies and research that took away precious hours of sleeping time, I think I figured it out. And this what I learnt...

1. Egg. You must know this is a non-bake cake. So quite naturally to lessen the risk of salmonella and other health hazards from consuming uncooked eggs, I decided to leave eggys out.

2. In place of eggs, they started using heavy whipping cream. I understand this is to stabilize the cake and enable it to bind and hold together better after chilling (?). Don't quote me here, I don't really know what I am talking about.

3. Traditional recipes use zabaglione custards. Quite simply, it is an italian custard that consist egg yolks beaten with sugar and masala liquor. But since we talked about point 1 above, we shan't do this, shall we?

4. Oh well, if you m u s t make this with eggs, then I'd strongly suggest that you get really fresh, pasteurized eggs. As fresh as you can find. I would also recommend that you cook the egg bain marie. And finish the cake within one day, particularly in our humid weather.

5. Liquor? Safely omitted. Can't have that with young children. Next life time.

After examining and cross-examining maaaaaaaaaaaaany, and I really mean, countless recipes, I finally settled on Happy Home Baking. From a trusted home baker in Singapore. Someone whom I have adapted recipes from. Someone whose blog I follow. And for the benefit of 'visual assistance', I like to refer to Bing's, her photos are beautiful! Pictures speak a thousand words indeed.

You should always trust your own countrywomen. From time to time.

Here's what you'd need:

For the Coffee / Espresso:
* 1 cup of good coffee (I brew a double shot espresso; else buy one from Starbucks or 3-in-1 coffee will do)
* Sugar to taste

Cream Filling:
* 500gm Mascarpone Cheese
* 6 tbsp icing sugar
* 2 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
* 1/2 tsp Coffee Emulco (I could have used 3 tbsp coffee but I didn't want caffeine in my cream, I needed my children to sleep)
* 400gm Whipping Cream (I used Emborg Whipping Cream that comes in 200gm/carton)

Sponge Fingers / Others
* about 30 sponge fingers (I used Savoiardi from Phoon Huat)
* Cocoa powder (for dusting)
* Blueberry, Strawberry, Passion Fruits (optional)

This is what I did:

Prepared your pan. I used a 10" round tin with removable base. I lined the side of the round tin with a strip of plastic to better hold the side of the cake.

Coffee
1. Make a good cup of coffee, add sugar to taste. Pour out onto a shallow plate and leave it to cool. Set aside.

Cream Custard:
1. In a electric mixer, cream your Whipping Cream till stiff peak (I stopped the moment the cream comes together and is no longer 'watery'). Be careful not to overbeat.

2. While mixer is whisking away, prepare another bowl and add in Mascarpone Cheese, Icing Sugar and Essences. With a hand whisk, manual whisk this mixture together till well blended.

3. Fold stiff Whipping Cream into the Mascarpone Cheese mixture in 2 additions.

4. At this point, I ran out of arm power, so I returned the mixture to the electric mixer and gave it a quick 30sec whisk, just to be sure that all are well incorporated together.

To assemble:

1. (A) Dip sponge fingers one by one, briefly and very s-w-i-f-t-l-y into the cooled coffee. Place at the base of the tin. You may have to break some fingers in order to cover the round base.

2. (B) Scoop some Cream Custard onto the fingers and level it.

3. (C) Dust cocoa powder over the cream custard.

4. Repeat steps A to C above. Be sure to ration your custard as you will need to end off with it (I managed to get 3 layers of A-C). Dust with cocoa powder as the final step.

5. Cling wrap and chill in fridge for at least 24 hours.

6. When ready to serve, remove cake from the tin pan. Remove the plastic strip that was lined on its side. Dust a layer of cocoa powder as the day old powder would have been wet by now. Top and decorate with strawberries/blueberries/passion fruit.

7. Sing a song, dance around the cake,... slice and enjoy!