My first thought upon hearing that the Daring Bakers challenge for February was tiramisu was, "OMG. Valentine's Day!" My husband looooooooves the tiramisu at Buca di Beppo, as it is very booze-filled and rich. I had visions of a beautiful, molded tiramisu with cocoa-powder hearts upon it, an edible testament to my love. The challenge involved making the tiramisu entirely from scratch - ladyfingers/savoiardi, pastry cream, zabaglione, whipped cream, and even the mascarpone. This is certainly a dessert worthy of being served on Valentine's Day.Apparently my love is oozy and not very boozy, extremely high-maintenance (we knew that) and a lot of work, but still pretty tasty.
The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.
The mascarpone was a pain. It would not thicken, which I figured about an hour into it might be due to using a glass bowl instead of a metal one, but even after I switched bowls and decided I'd just cook the dickens out of it, it never reached the point described. I ended up sticking it in the fridge and it came out resembling soft cheese and was edible (though very tangy due to the extra lemon I added out of desperation).
The pastry cream did not thicken, either, which baffled me. It's not like I've never made it before. I ended adding more flour, cornstarch, and sugar mixed with a touch more milk.
The man of the house said that he thought my ladyfingers were storebought. What a compliment! I don't know if I folded the batter too much or made them too big or what, but I got about half of what I should have and the tiramisu showed it. It would've been a little bit more structured and a lot more delicious (it was lacking coffee and booze flavor as it was) if I had more ladyfingers. Instead of using rum extract, by the way, I used actual rum. I just barely dipped the biscuits in the coffee (which was espresso made in a drip coffee maker, as I am not fancy enough to have an actual espresso machine, and was too cheap to buy some from a coffee shop), as instructed, and they were not nearly soaked enough.
All lessons to take to my next attempt, eh?
