LTH Home

Tiramisu recipe: your favorite ingredients

Tiramisu recipe: your favorite ingredients
  • Forum HomePost Reply BackTop
  • Tiramisu recipe: your favorite ingredients

    Post #1 - June 17th, 2004, 5:31 pm
    Post #1 - June 17th, 2004, 5:31 pm Post #1 - June 17th, 2004, 5:31 pm
    I find it quite easy to make. My recipe is from "Cookie" my Italian friend's mom. It includes coffee and coffee liquor, whipped cream, mascarpone, sugar eggs, and cocoa for the top.

    I know it's roots are not in Italy...at least that is what I've read...

    Also, I've used soft ladyfingers before, this time I'm using hard from an Italian grocer. Any suggestions?

    What do you use?
  • Post #2 - June 17th, 2004, 6:08 pm
    Post #2 - June 17th, 2004, 6:08 pm Post #2 - June 17th, 2004, 6:08 pm
    Food Nut wrote:I know it's roots are not in Italy...at least that is what I've read...


    It's roots not in Italy? Where is it supposed to come from then and who makes the claim? (I'm not challanging your statement but just interested in hearing or finding out about the argument.) The precise concoction and name are of fairly recent origin but I thought from Italy. All the elements have been long used in Italian desserts.

    Just curious. If it's not, it's no skin off my back...

    A
    Alle Nerven exzitiert von dem gewürzten Wein -- Anwandlung von Todesahndungen -- Doppeltgänger --
    - aus dem Tagebuch E.T.A. Hoffmanns, 6. Januar 1804.
    ________
    Na sir is na seachain an cath.
  • Post #3 - June 17th, 2004, 6:38 pm
    Post #3 - June 17th, 2004, 6:38 pm Post #3 - June 17th, 2004, 6:38 pm
    Is tiramisu indigenous to Italy or are its origins elsewhere? That's an interesting question I had wondered about myself. I too was a bit skeptical about its origins partly because recipes don't appear in older Italian cookbooks. According to an article by Anna Maria Volpi, linked below, tiramisu is of fairly recent origin, perhaps being invented at Le Beccherie in Treviso in the 1970s. I don't know if that's the definitive history but it sounds reasonable to me.

    http://www.annamariavolpi.com/page38.html
  • Post #4 - June 18th, 2004, 6:19 am
    Post #4 - June 18th, 2004, 6:19 am Post #4 - June 18th, 2004, 6:19 am
    I had always thought that Tiramisu was an American chef's invention. I remember when it first "appeared" people saying that it was served all over America, but hardly in Italy.

    However, the Internet sources say otherwise. As a librarian, I don't trust the Internet. I'll check at work!
    Reading is a right. Censorship is not.
  • Post #5 - June 18th, 2004, 7:02 am
    Post #5 - June 18th, 2004, 7:02 am Post #5 - June 18th, 2004, 7:02 am
    Food Nut wrote: I don't trust the Internet


    I agree strongly. There are amazing amounts of frightening misinformation out there... At least most books and journal articles go through some manner of review...

    If only young people could be convinced of this... Though I realise that cutting and pasting is much messier with paper; booooring...

    And, like, aren't libraries just for hanging out?

    :evil: :twisted: :roll:

    :wink:
    A

    P.S. 1: Perhaps this dish has a history like that of the famous Caesar's salad, put together outside Italy but by an Italian restaurateur/chef. The composition of the dish and the name --hardly the kind of name that anyone who is not an accomplished speaker of Italian would come up with -- seem too Italianate in essence to be the product of someone outside the culture or even just on its periphery.

    P.S.2: I feel badly about neglecting the question of the original post and will now confess to having nothing to say in that regard. Sorry, Food Nut, for leading the spago away from the question about ingredients.
    Alle Nerven exzitiert von dem gewürzten Wein -- Anwandlung von Todesahndungen -- Doppeltgänger --
    - aus dem Tagebuch E.T.A. Hoffmanns, 6. Januar 1804.
    ________
    Na sir is na seachain an cath.
  • Post #6 - June 18th, 2004, 9:24 am
    Post #6 - June 18th, 2004, 9:24 am Post #6 - June 18th, 2004, 9:24 am
    Antonius wrote: At least most books and journal articles go through some manner of review...


    Hey Antonius, you're forgetting the BIG exception of book and (magazine) articles dealing with food, where apparently the editors just roll over and accept any kind of silly claim about history and etymology. Remember Mike G's example from Saveur, that the hamburger was invented at the St Louis World's Fair? Or, my personal favorite, the declaration that the name "Hoppin' John" is in fact Arabic-Hindi [sic] bahatta kachang (attributed, admiringly, to Karen Hess, The Carolina Rice Kitchen, in Damon Lee Fowler, Classical Southern Cooking). Yes, we all know the South had a large contingent of "Arabic-Hindi" speakers...
  • Post #7 - June 20th, 2004, 12:43 pm
    Post #7 - June 20th, 2004, 12:43 pm Post #7 - June 20th, 2004, 12:43 pm
    Anyway, I have no definitive answer except that I don't know where it originated, but I like it. I will admit to being sick of seeing it on every menu, and it not being very good many times. However, it's a tasty treat to make at home and no more difficult than any other dessert. I suggest buying the mascarpone at an Italian deli/market. I find it much cheaper by the pound that way. I'd also buy the imported crispy ladyfingers there as well.

    Here's Cookie's Tiramisu (with a few adaptations):

    2 large eggs separated
    1/2 c sugar
    8 oz. mascarpone cheese
    1/2 pint chilled whipping cream
    2 tbs coffee liquor
    1 cup fresh brewed strong coffee
    24 ladyfingers
    unsweetened cocoa

    Combine 2 yolks with sugar and liquor over double boiler until sugar dissolves. Stir frequently with whisk. Cool. Beat in cheese until smooth.

    Separately, beat 2 egg whites to soft peak and set aside. Then, beat whipped cream to soft peaks.

    Fold in whites and whipped cream gently to the cheese mixture.

    Line the bottom of a 9 X 9 dish with ladyfingers dipped in coffee, or brush generously with coffee using pastry brush. Spread with 1/2 of the cheese mixture. Repeat with a layer of dipped lady fingers and remaining mixture. Dust the top with unsweetened cocoa.

    Chill for a few hours at the very least.

    Enjoy nine delectable servings.
    Reading is a right. Censorship is not.
  • Post #8 - June 20th, 2004, 4:28 pm
    Post #8 - June 20th, 2004, 4:28 pm Post #8 - June 20th, 2004, 4:28 pm
    ...will I go straight to Hell if I substitute full-fat cream cheese for the mascarpone, just because I have it on hand? How much difference will it make in the texture of the finished product?

    Also, not that I would sub both at the same time, is there an alternative dunk for the ladyfingers that is not coffee-flavored? The two friends for whom I customarily cook the Class-A dinners hate - and I do mean HATE - anything even mildly coffee-flavored. Would a combo of, say, chocolate and orange flavors do, e.g., Creme de Cacao and fresh OJ, or Cointreau/Grand Marnier and cooled-down strong cocoa, perhaps made from that good Ghiradelli ground sweet chocolate/cocoa mixture? Should I maybe make it with hot water dosed with a shot of Creme de Cacao? One is coming to dinner next Sunday, and since I'm making mainly casual summery stuff (boiled crawfish, grilled Ciappetti veal brats on ciambatta, maybe some jerk chicken), and the appropriately casual accompaniments, I want to make an elaborate but make-ahead dessert, catering to the taste of my estimable guests.

    Thanks!

    :twisted:
  • Post #9 - June 20th, 2004, 7:08 pm
    Post #9 - June 20th, 2004, 7:08 pm Post #9 - June 20th, 2004, 7:08 pm
    I cannot vouch for any substitute to the mascarpone. I don't see why not, though. They do have a similar texture.

    I would substitute a liquid made of cocoa, hot water, and some sugar, but not too much and only after the sugary liquor is added, since the coffee is not sweet. I would suggest a "nut" flavor liquor myself, perhaps Frangelico, rather than an orange flavor. I have seen recipes with marsala...

    Unless of course you are willing to take a risk on a visitor and try the "orange" version. YOU NEVER KNOW! It might have a summery twist with some zest grated into the cheese mixture!

    Good Luck.
    Reading is a right. Censorship is not.
  • Post #10 - June 20th, 2004, 8:12 pm
    Post #10 - June 20th, 2004, 8:12 pm Post #10 - June 20th, 2004, 8:12 pm
    Thanks, and much obliged. Think I'll ask the Guinea pig - er, my guest, I mean - if he likes the combo of orange and chocolate before I pull the trigger!

    :twisted:
  • Post #11 - June 20th, 2004, 8:13 pm
    Post #11 - June 20th, 2004, 8:13 pm Post #11 - June 20th, 2004, 8:13 pm
    Thanks, and much obliged. Think I'll ask the Guinea pig - er, my guest, I mean - if he likes the combo of orange and chocolate before I pull the trigger!

    :twisted:
  • Post #12 - February 28th, 2014, 11:03 am
    Post #12 - February 28th, 2014, 11:03 am Post #12 - February 28th, 2014, 11:03 am
    I used google translator to obtain these quotes.

    Restaurant originating Tiramisu closing (original Italian)

    Closes in Treviso on March 30, the restaurant "Le Beccherie 'family Campeol, where the original Tiramisu, the most famous pudding over the world. In the '70s it was Ada with her husband Aldo Campeol and the pastry chef Roberto Linguanotto to create the Tiramisu, changing the recipe of the ancient imperial and cup cakes 'tonics' used at the time in the brothels.
    ...


    Interesting quote from the article's author apparently:
    The Beccherie are victims of a number of factors, which certainly are also linked to the economic crisis, but also, in my opinion, to a certain flattening of the world's gastronomic culture, where the desire to show in the kitchen prevails on the commitment to satisfy the maximum the desire level of conviviality, or where the alleged nutritional needs punish tastes and flavors which express the quality of the territory, and with them, the ones that are true expressions of culture and civilization.
    Cathy2

    "You'll be remembered long after you're dead if you make good gravy, mashed potatoes and biscuits." -- Nathalie Dupree
    Facebook, Twitter, Greater Midwest Foodways,
  • Post #13 - May 1st, 2021, 9:18 pm
    Post #13 - May 1st, 2021, 9:18 pm Post #13 - May 1st, 2021, 9:18 pm
    does anyone have strong feelings about a particular tiramisu recipe? my preliminary research across reputable sources indicates a lot of variation about sabayon or no, cream or no, two alcohols or one, and i'm interested to try my hand at a solid contender. imagined authenticity less important than deliciousness!

Contact

About

Team

Advertize

Close

Chat

Articles

Guide

Events

more