Tiramisu

The introduction

Hello everyone, I hope, that you are all doing just fine!

In this article I want to tell you about this recipe and the way, that I prepared this Tiramisu cake, which everyone liked and I was really proud of that, because it was the first time of me preparing the tiramisu cake, if you want to know the truth.

The other day I really wanted to prepare Tiramisu and I hadn’t really prepared it until then, I mean, I didn’t really know how to prepare it, though I had seen it being prepared by my sister, who just loves this Tiramisu cake and she has prepared it many times and it’s just perfect, if you want to know the truth, because she really did a great job in researching and things like that and she just found out the perfect recipe for it, I guess. Well, at least , people really like her Tiramisu and eat it and want to eat it and everything and that’s just why I decided to have her recipe read and prepare this Tiramisu, which everyone likes.

However, she prepares the tiramisu cake with those traditional ingredients, which are mascarpone cheese and those real ladyfingers and heavy cream and everything and it’s very delicious and she loves the tiramisu cake very much, if you want to know the truth, and she usually prepares it many times, you know. however, it’s pretty expensive to have it all prepared with those things, of course. And it’s not that reasonable to have it all the time, though buying just one piece of tiramisu somewhere in a supermarket or bakery cost much more expensive, I guess, and, well, maybe it’s not even that delicious, as the home prepared one, because that way, you can have it prepared just the way you want it to be and have as many things in it as you want and have it as sweet as you want and stuff like that , you know. and that’s the very main thing here, if you ask me, because I have tasted tiramisu cake in many supermarkets and bakeries and places like that and I find it pretty hard to like any of them, because if some of them may have been a little closer to the tiramisu taste, which I like, most of them have just been something very different from tiramisu cake taste and I have just wasted all my money in them and bought all of them  in vain, if you ask me.

You know, I didn’t want to taste Tiramisu at first, just like it was about this kiwi fruit, when my sister was trying her best to make me taste it and I was like “I don’t love kiwi fruit” while, in fact, I hadn’t even tasted this fruit and I was just assuming that I didn’t like that kiwi fruit, if you want to know the truth. And, well, however, my sister tried her best to make me taste her tiramisu once and twice and many other times, I still didn’t want to taste it . and then, there was this time, when I just ate some of it and I really liked it, it was like those trifles, that she had been preparing for me and that I really loved so much, however, this was lighter and it had this rum essence, which usually those trifles didn’t have, of course , and this espresso taste, which made it pretty different,too, of course.

To be honest, I didn’t really want to prepare it myself and I thought, that I could just buy one piece of that tiramisu cake and I could just eat it like that, however, I knew, that every time that I tried to eat tiramisu cake in some cafes or supermarkets or wherever, it was not just that tasty as it was my sister’s. I mean, they didn’t really taste like tiramisu at all and I had just spent all that money in calories and nothing more , because they just had those calories and didn’t taste like tiramisu and I could just buy some other things in that money , which would have been more delicious than that so called tiramisu. Well, f you don’t know how to prepare something, you shouldn’t prepare it at all, I mean, when you are working in a bakery or whatever and you are baking those stuff for the customers to buy them, then you shouldn’t do things like that, however, if you are preparing something at home for yourself or whatever, then, of course, you can do whatever you want and you can practice in preparing some stuffand then after some time, you get all experienced and stuff and you will want to prepare those things for others , too, and serve them those stuff and surprise them or something like that, you know.

Mascarpone substitute

Anyways, as you know, tiramisu is prepared from that mascarpone cheese, which is pretty good and it doesn’t taste like any other things, I guess, however, it doesn’t really have much of a taste, if you want to know the truth, so I don’t really know, why there’s so much fuss about it and why it’s the most important part of tiramisu cake, so that’s why I had decided to find a substitute for it and have a tiramisu prepared without using mascarpone cheese. I googled some things about mascarpone and how it’s prepared and what it contains and everything and, well, I decided, that I could  have some cream cheese in my tiramisu instead of mascarpone cheese and I started looking for some good cream cheese in the large supermarkets, where they have some variety of cream cheese and I could read the ingredients and I could then decide whether I would buy those ones or notand, well, maybe it was not that good idea to use cream cheese instead of mascarpone and maybe I could just have mascarpone bought and used in my recipe.

So that, I visited some large supermarkets and saw all those cream cheese stuff that they had there and I was reading the signs on them and deciding which ones were better. You know, most of them had salt in them and I didn’t want them to have salt, of course, because tiramisu should have been kind of sweet, but not that sweet, you know, and I didn’t want it to have some kind of salty taste. However, I still bought some cream cheese, which had salt in it, you know, and it was pretty much salty, if you want to know the truth.  I mean, I bought two packages of different cream cheese and one of them was saltier than the other, though they still were not that salty that I couldn’t shake that saltiness of them anyways.

Well, there were some cream cheeses there in Fresco supermarket and after some time of deciding, I decided to have this Milkana cream cheese bought and then I thought, that I would buy the other one, too, however, then I just changed my mind and just took that one, though it would have been better, if I just had the other one bought, too, because after getting home, I realized, that this one cream cheese package wouldn’t be enough and that I would need the other one, too, and then I had to go out and buy this other one, you know, however, I was pretty lazy for that. Anyways, I still had to go outside and buy another package of cream cheese, but this time I chose another one, I mean, there was this cream cheese from President and it said, that it had some Greek walnuts taste and I got pretty interested in thatand I decided to have it in my tiramisu, so that I bought it and wanted to get home fast, because I would then taste it and decide, whether it was okay to have it in my tiramisu or if I needed to buy another one of that cream cheese or if I could just prepare my tiramisu with one package of cream cheese. Well, when I tasted that cream cheese, it was pretty much salty and it didn’t really have much of a taste of Greek  walnuts, however, I don’t really know how they taste, I guess.

I had also bought this whipping cream and though it was that heavy cream, which they say, that tiramisu should have, it was a pretty good one for that, if you want to know the truth and it didn’t really have much of a difference there, so that it was all not a bad idea to have that whipping cream in my dessert tiramisu and not the heavy cream with 38% fat or more.

Ingredients:

• Savoiardi (ladyfingers), 48 pieces, about 400 grams
• Whipping cream, 200 ml
• Eggs, 2 medium
• Water, 2 cups
• Espresso powder
• Rum essence, 2 teaspoons
• Vanilla
• Cream cheese, about 360 grams
• Amaretto coffee powder, ½  package
• Cocoa powder
• White granulated sugar, ½ cup or more

Preparation process

Well, the preparation process started with me preparing the whipping cream. To tell you the truth, it didn’t really need much of a preparation, I mean, it just needed to be whisked for a couple of minutes, so that it would have that thick consistency and it would have some shape or whatever, however, you shouldn’t really whisk it that much that it gets this buttery taste, you know. so that, it just needs up to 3 or 5 minutes to whisk itand it all depends the speed of the mixer, you know. well, after those couple of minutes, I stopped the mixer and checked the whipping cream and it was pretty good and I could just put it into the fridge, until I prepared some other things and until I needed it, of course.

After that, I took those cream cheese packages and tasted them and they had this kind of salty taste and they weren’t good for my tiramisu filling that way, because it should have been sweet and not salty, so that I would have to add some sugar and vanilla, so that it wouldn’t have that salty taste in the filling. And while adding some sugar, I also tasted the filling, so that I could decide whether that amount of sugar was enough or not. Well, first of all, I had those cream cheese packages on a room temperature, because if you don’t have them on a room temperature, then they can’t be mixed with some other things, as they say, and it’s pretty much the truth, because when they are on a room temperature, they get really soft and easy to be mixed with some things. So that when I added some vanilla and sugar and mixed them together and it was pretty good in taste, I had two egg yolks separated from their egg whites and had those two egg yolks added to the cream cheese mixture and mixed them together. Then I had those remaining egg whites whisked with the mixer for a couple of minutes so that they would get whiter and have that thick consistency and be fluffy, you know, so that I could have it added to the mixture with the whipping cream. And when everything was ready, I set that cream cheese mixture aside and started preparing the coffee mixture, which is very essential for the tiramisu cake and it’s just impossible to skip that step, however, those bakeries don’t do that thing , I guess, because I haven’t eaten tiramisu, which had that kind of taste of rum and espresso, or maybe they had, but not that it would be very obvious, I don’t know.

Anyways, I had plenty of espresso powder added to my coffee machine and I just had this water added in the machine, so that it would prepare some espresso. When the espresso was prepared and done, I had it poured in a wide bowl, so that it would get cold and then I would have it with some rum. And when it was cooled down, I added that rum essence and I tasted it  to see, whether the taste of rum was pretty obvious or not, because I really love that rum flavor in my tiramisu cake, you know.

So, after everything, it was time to have that savoiardi opened and assembled. You know, I had this baking form bought in a supermarket this other day and, to tell you the truth, I was really looking for that kind of thing and I was pretty glad, that I finally found one and I took it at once and it only cost 80 tetris, so that it was a pretty good idea to have it bought, and , well, it didn’t even needed to be washed, when the tiramisu cake was over and finished, and I could just throw it away and then, when I needed it, I would buy it again. And I bought it in Varketili, nearby Varketili metro station,somewhere in the beginning of Kaloubani street in a shop full of those kinds of things, I mean, they have glasses and kettles and plastic containers and everything and they have pretty good things, if you want to know the truth.

Well, anyways, this baking form was the size of 25x15 or something like that, that I just wanted and when I put those savoiardi in it, it was enough for the 24 savoiardi in all and it was pretty good, because I just had that amount, that was enough for the two layers and a little bit more and I could just saave that extra ones and use them another time. And I bought that savoiardi in Carrefour supermarket the other day and it costs much cheaper, than the other savoiardi in the supermarkets, and, besides, this savoiardi is 400 grams and costs up to 5 larisand the other ones are 200 grams and cost 6 laris or so, so that it’s pretty reasonable to buy this savoiardi, you know.

So, I took the cocoa powder and some espresso powder out and put them on the table with the other things and when everything was ready, I just took my whipping cream out and took a small piece of it and mixed it well together with the cream cheese mixture and I also added some amaretto coffee powder. Then I had that remaining whipping cream and mixed it with a spatula with that cream cheese mixture very slowly. And then I also added those whisked egg whites and had everything mixed.

And now it was time to assemble the cake.

Well, firstly, I had to take these savoiardi and have them put into that espresso and rum mixture for just a second or two and then put it into the baking form and I took those savoiardi one by one and had the first layer assembled in the baking form. Then I took one half of that tiramisu cream filling mixture and poured it onto the savoiardi layer and kind of flattened it and then I had cocoa powder and then espresso powder sprinkled on all over the cream filling. Then it was time for the second layerof savoiardi and I did it the same again and then poured the remaining half of the cream filling on it and sprinkled it with plenty of espresso powder and cocoa powder and that was pretty much it. Then I just wiped some unnecessary things from the edges of that baking form and I put it in the fridge for a night and then I would taste it in the morning and see how it tasted, though I really hoped, that it would be very delicious.

And that day came and it was morning and I could taste my tiramisu cake and, well, it was just perfect! It was really good and I wanted to eat it all, however, I didn’t really had much time, because I had to go to the lectures, so that I just looked forward to coming home and eating it again.

So that, it was my Tiramisu recipe with cream cheese and not mascarpone and some whipping cream instead of that heavy cream and it was really good and it was cheaper, than the mascarpone and heavy cream one and if you want to have a cheaper tiramisu cake and plenty of it, you should prepare it with this recipe, because 250 grams of mascarpone costs somewhere about 8 laris and the heavy cream costs somewhere about that amount of money, too, and if you buy that 200 grams ladyfingers, they cost about 6 laris, I guess, and, well, that’s really expensive to buy everything, and, besides, the tiramisu cake will be half of the amount of my tiramisu cake, I guess. And I had these cream cheese packages bought, which were 360 grams in all and cost up to 10 laris, I guess. And the savoiardi cost up to 5  laris and that 200 ml whipping cream was 3 laris or so. And, you see, how much money you can spare with those substitutions and still have a great tiramisu cake and plenty of it, if you want to know the truth, and just enjoy it. You know, when you are a student and you are somewhere on your own and you just try to live normally and have something delicious prepared from time to time, it’s not that wise to use all your money in those desserts or whatever, and you just have to think of something cheaper , but delicious, too, of course. It’s not like you are free to have all the money spent on some good things and the ones, that are expensive and things like that. You just have to use it wisely, you know and control it, because it’s really difficult to use your money wisely in things like that.

Anyways, it’s just pretty reasonable to have some things substituted and have them in your tiramisu dessert and, I must say, that the taste is just perfect and you won’t even feel something strange in there, if you want to know the truth.

So that, enjoy your cooking!

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