Tiramisu: The Recipe

Edited to fix up a couple of weird things that posting from Google Docs does (pic was too damn big, post title did not show, heading styles were not what I wanted - bah)

Well, finally, the recipe for Tiramisu. The base sponge is reciped in an earlier post. The result looks like this (which is the round version - versus the mini version or the rectangular version [no pic] that I also made {the recipe below is for the rectangular version}):

I more or less followed the recipe from Professional Baking; although reports are in that some recipes in it are slightly flaky (e.g. this version of the recipe completely omits ¡alcohol! which is essential to the soul of a Tiramisu).

Tiramisu

Ingredients

• Ladyfinger Sponge base (½ sheet pan) cut into 2
• Espresso Syrup
• 500 ml espresso [1 pt]
  
• 250 ml Dessert syrup [½ pt]
  
• 125 ml sugar [¼ lb]
  
• 125 ml water (mix these and bring to a boil; stir until sugar is dissolved; let cool) [4 oz]
• ¼ C rum
  
• 1,5 kg Mascarpone filling [3 lb] (procedure below)
  
• 2 yolks
• 180 gr sugar [6 oz]
• 120 gr water [4 oz]
• 60 gr Thick Sugar Syrup [2 oz]
• 3 parts sugar to 1 part water; boil until thick and almost syrupy; let cool (it thickens up some more)
  
• 500 gr Mascarpone [1 #] (room temp is good)
  
• 740 gr whipping cream [1 lb 8 oz]
• Cocoa (for dusting)
• Dark chocolate (bar) for making chocolate shavings

Procedure

1. Place one sponge on a (serving) platter
2. Add ¼ C rum to the espresso syrup
   
3. Soak with the Espresso Dessert Syrup (wet but not soggy)
4. Make the mascarpone filling
1. Whip egg yolks until light
   
2. Cook sugar, water and thick syrup to 120C [248F]
3. Slowly pour hot sugar into egg yolks while whipping up a storm; whip until cool (sort of makes a powdery mass - something like powdered sugar)
4. Mix the mascarpone until softened
5. Mix in the sugar/yolk stuff
6. Whip the cream
7. Fold into mascarpone mixture
5. Smear ½ the mascarpone filling onto the base
6. Place on the 2nd half of the sponge
7. Soak with some more espresso syrup (moderately)
8. Top with the other ½ of the mascarpone filling and level the top and smooth the sides
9. Cool for an hour or 6 in the fridge (or freeze)
   
10. Dust with cocoa evenly (maybe an hour or two, three, four before serving)
    
11. Shave, with a sharp knife and watching out for your fingers, chocolate from the bar (it should be between fridge cold nor room temp for decent results)
12. Sprinkle shavings over the cake

- Done -

Notes

1. I know that step 4.2 has redundant sugar, water and syrup (which is also just sugar and water) being cooked together but this is a "what I actually did" posting and what I actually did was prepare the simple syrup first, then a make a heavy syrup as a substitute for the "glucose or corn syrup" that the recipe called for (I will avoid corn syrup and don't have glucose in house). Next time I'll read ahead and just cook up some sugar and water straight.
   
2. Hot sugar mixtures burn nastily. Be careful.
3. These cakes freeze beautifully (without the cocoa and chocolate toppings)

With any luck I'm posting this from Google Docs - - who knows what it's going to end up looking like.