Jennyville

  1. Home
  2. About
  3. History
  4. Add the Jennyville feed to your feed reader! Web Feed

  1. How to make Tiramisu in BFE.

    Bumfuck Egyptians, rejoice...

    ...For today I will show you how to make not one, but two delicious food items (mascarpone cheese, and tiramisu) that you'll never find in your local grocery hole because they've either never heard of them, or don't have room between the PBR and Little Debbie snack cakes. You know what I mean. Or, at least, I know Elvis knows what I mean. (Solidarity, man.)

    Everybody loves tiramisu, but some of us aren't lucky enough to be able to order it at any local restaurant or buy it at any local grocery store, and our only option is to make our own. Which would be fine, except - oh, wait - we can't get the ingredients either. Well, after a lot of whining and crying and hardcore dessert cravings, I've found solutions to every last obstacle facing us BFEians.

    Here's what you will need to gather together before you get started:

    1. Lady Fingers (Savoiardi). Do not buy the soft, spongy ones. The ones you want are crispy (trust me on this). After searching and searching for these, I realized it was much easier to just buy them off of Amazon.com, which has a decent selection. A package this size is enough for one batch of tiramisu. However, because I knew I'd be making way more than one batch, I opted for the big ol' Box O' Ladyfingers, which is a whole lot of freaking ladyfingers. (Don't let the photo of a couscous box scare you - it really is ladyfingers, I assure you.)

    2. Kahlua, which you should hopefully be able to get at your local liquor store. At least, I can. (This is my litmus test - until someone tells me otherwise, I'm assuming that I'm way farther out in BFE than anyone else, and so if I can get it, you probably can. Correct me if I'm wrong.)

    3. You will also need to obtain yourself some mascarpone cheese. If you can find some at the store, great. If you can't, you'll need to pick up some citric acid to make your own, and you may as well just go straight to eBay for this one. There are a lot of options here; however, I purchased mine from these fine folks and found them to be a good source with reasonable prices. Quantity is not important here because you will only need a tiny amount for each batch of mascarpone that you make. I purchased a 4 ounce bag a few months ago and have barely made a dent in it.

    To make your own mascarpone, here's what I recommend:

    3 cups heavy whipping cream
    1/8 teaspoon citric acid

    In a double boiler or thick-walled pot (I use a small, thick, aluminum saucepan) heat the cream (on the very lowest heat setting, stirring occasionally) until it reaches 180 degrees.

    Remove immediately from heat and whisk or stir in the citric acid, a little at a time. The mixture will thicken just slightly.

    The first time I made mascarpone, I thought the more acid the better (because I wanted it to be nice and thick), but DO NOT add any more than listed in the recipe! Otherwise your mascarpone will be too sour... and you don't want that.

    Let the mixture cool to room temperature or in the refrigerator, then strain. A cheesecloth would probably work pretty well, but I haven't tried that yet. I place a wire mesh strainer in a container, then line it with coffee filters or paper towels. HOWEVER, you can only strain about a 1/2 to 3/4 cup of the cheese mixture in each container. If you try to strain more than that all at once in the same container, it won't drain properly - the outside will look drained, but the inside will still be runny and not solidified at all. So divide it up into about four strainers if you can, and let drain in the refrigerator for at least 12 hours. At this point, I like to take it out, check the density, change the coffee filter or paper towels, and put it all back in to drain for another 24 hours. When it's properly drained, it ought to be, consistency-wise, slightly softer than cream cheese... somewhat firm, but pliable.

    And, once your mascarpone is ready, you need to make your tiramisu fairly soon. The mascarpone you've made does not contain preservatives and should be kept refrigerated and eaten within a few days when possible.

    Okay, now on to making the tiramisu. I've used a good recipe from Classic Stars Desserts (which Evan was kind enough to give me for my birthday), but it contains raw eggs - and raw eggs make me kinda nervous. So, because I don't want to be responsible for any of you coming down with salmonella, I'm recommending my adaptation of Pioneer Woman's recipe. It was pretty good as is, but was made so much better by replacing the marsala (in the coffee mixture) with Kahlua, a very tasty coffee liqueur. So print the recipe out, then make two corrections:
    1. Only use half of the Marsala called for in the zabaglione (or just use Kahlua instead).
    2. Substitute an equal amount of Kahlua for the Marsala in the coffee mixture.

    Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

    I know this sounds like a lot of work, but it's definitely worth it. Just make it once, and you'll thank me... I promise.

    Read and add comments to this entry! 4 Comments | Sunday December 23rd 2007 at 8:56am from Jenny +