Tiramisu

I did a ton of research on how to make Tiramisu. I've made Tiramisu twice... this is my second time. the first time I made it was for my mom's birthday and it was okay. She was happy with it, but I wasn't too satisfied. I used the same recipe again this time, but made sure to beat the egg whites much more until they were stiff. Also, I added a little something else to the original recipe to give the custard some more volume and thickness.

I used the recipe from Giallo zafferano. Here's her video. I watched it a couple times, but for some reason, my egg whites NEVER get as puffy and voluminous as hers does in the video. I find it impossible... it could be because she has a stand mixer and I'm just using a regular old hand electric mixer. I did beat the egg whites until they were stiff enough for me to put the bowl upside and see that nothing will drip out (a little trick to see if your egg whites or cream has reached it's stiff peaks ;) always a great trick) However, they did not come to the size that she shows in the video. If I were to do this recipe again, I'll try and whip those egg whites even longer, but I highly doubt it will work.

Cake version:

 

Trifle cup version: 

Ingredients: 

• 1-2 boxes of 7 oz lady fingers (try to use hard shelled ITALIAN made lady fingers. Not the soft shelled ones)
• 1 pound of marscapone cheese
• some cocoa powder
• 10 Tbs of granulated sugar
• 6 eggs (will need to separate them into egg whites and yolks)
• 2 cups or so of really strong coffee (preferably espresso)
• about 4 Tbs of rum (or however much you like) This is something I added myself since I saw lots of other recipes use it
• 1 cup of heavy whipping cream (This wasn't in the original recipe. I added it to give the custard more density and volume. Without this, it would be a bit too runny for me)

To be honest, the amount of lady fingers and marscapone cheese that you use is all relevant to how big your casserole dish or baking dish is. I used a 2.8 L square glass baking dish that had a good amount of height to it. I found out that I really only needed ONE 7oz box of lady fingers. Two wasn't really necessary. I ended up making a huge cake with 3 layers by using 1.5 boxes. (Lady fingers are quite pricey, so if you don't need to buy that many, don't lol) My cake would have been better off with just 2 layers (by using 1 box of lady fingers) and a little less marscapone cheese mixture (perhaps 1/2 - 3/4 pounds would have been enough) 

Procedure:

1. Separate the egg yolks and whites into 2 separate bowls. Prepare a bigger bowl for the egg yolks, because this is where all of your ingredients will combine into in the end. Wash your eggs well! Use organic and good quality eggs (Grade A or Grade AA) These eggs will NOT be cooked, so make sure everything is clean. Try to avoid letting the egg yolk or whites touch the shell. Make sure to dry the eggs after you wash them. You can't have any water in the egg white mixture.
2. Add 5 tbs of sugar to the egg yolks. Whisk until well combined and the sugar is dissolved.
3. Add the Marscapone cheese to the egg yolks. Mix well. It should be a slightly thick mixture with a pale yellow color.
4. In the bowl with egg whites, beat on high until it becomes frothy. Add a pinch of salt and gradually add 5 tbs of sugar while mixing. Beat it vigorously with either a stand mixer or hand mixer until it forms nice stiff peaks. Make sure there is absolutely NO water or oil or anything in the bowl before placing your egg whites in there. They will definitely prevent your egg whites from forming stiff peaks. If you're using a hand mixer, this will require some patience, but don't worry it will form those stiff peaks in the end. If it doesn't, you need to start over, because the results that these egg whites produce aren't that voluminous to begin with. :(
5.  Fold the egg whites into the marscapone mixture. Fold them together very delicately just until the mixture comes together. Since I feel that my mixture was on the runny side, I thought of a way to make it a bit more voluminous. I beat about a cup of heavy whipping cream in another bowl until it formed stiff peaks. I added a bit of sugar along the way. Then, I also put that into the marscapone + egg white mixture. It helped add a little bit of texture, but not a whole lot :/ That's our custard mixture :)
6. Get your casserole or deep pan dish ready so that we can start assembling our Tiramisu
7. Get another shallow, wide pan for dipping the lady fingers in. Make some espresso or very strong coffee and add a little bit of rum in it. mix it well and wait for the mixture to be cool. 
8. Soak the lady fingers in the espresso mixture for about 2-5 seconds and let the excess espresso drip out and then line them in the casserole dish to form a layer. 
9. Cover generously with the custard mixture and dust that layer with some coco powder using a fine mesh strainer. 
10. Repeat steps 8-9 one more time except line the lady fingers in the opposite direction as what you did for the first layer. This isn't really "necessary" but I think it provides more stability and prevents the custard from leaking to the bottom too easily. 
11. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours (preferably OVERNIGHT!) Patience is key :) let it set and enjoy it the next day :)

I've also made these in little trifle cups which I think are adorable :) They look so cute and much more presentable than in a big square glass dish lol. The procedure for assembling it is pretty similar. You break the lady fingers in thirds, soak them, and place them on the bottom however they can be arranged in a trifle cup.  Put some custard on, do another layer and then dust with cocoa powder. 
Use lady fingers or espresso beans if you have any on hand to garnish the trifle cup. I think it adds a little extra touch to it ;) If I had espresso beans, I would definitely put on 2 or 3.

I'm not totally satisfied with this recipe, but it is the most authentic one that I have come across. If I make another revised version in the future, I will be sure to post about it. Lots of websites have said that bakeries use pastry cream instead to make their tiramisu because it's simply much easier to hold up and it has that nice texture/volume. As much as I would love for the custard texture to be perfect, I want to make the tiramisu the authentic way. Making it without marscapone cheese or lady fingers, to me, is just simply not tiramisu. You just can't substitute it with sponge cake or white cake for lady fingers.The taste will be similar but it's just not the same. Honestly, I wouldn't put in the heavy cream if I didn't have to... that was just out of desperation to save the custard lol. Substituting it with cream cheese will also give it a sour taste. I've gotta say making this tiramisu is quite pricey and could be more pricey than what you buy in stores, but it's fun and you feel like you accomplished something after you do it :)