Tiramisu

Creamy, moist and rich without being too heavy; the perfect dessert.



Martin and I served this as our dessert at our Come Dine With Me party. It is easy to make, and also simple to present in a beautiful way as you can make it in individual ramekins and keep everything neat very easily.I decorated the top of each dessert with the first letter of each guest's name to make it personalised. I think I just wanted an excuse to cut up bits of cardboard and play around with cocoa powder for a while; it was fun!

Ingredients (makes 8 small tiramisus):

- 1 packet of lady fingers, or some plain sponge if you can't get the fingers
- Coffee, the best you can lay your mitts on
- Dark rum/ brandy/ baileys
- 3 egg yolks
- 1.25 oz caster sugarr
- 1 or 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (don't use vanilla essence, it's awful)
- 250g marscapone cheese
- 250ml double cream, lightly whipped
- cocoa powder for decoration

Method:
- Make some strong coffee and spike it with booze - dark rum or brandy is good; I had neither so I put in a splash of baileys and it worked really well. Dip the sponge fingers into the coffee and put a layer of wet gooey sponge at the bottom of each ramekin.
- Using an electric mixer (if you don't have one this stage will take a long time), mix together the egg yolks and the caster sugar for at least 10 minutes. The mixture will begin quite thin and yellow but get paler and thicker until it is almost white and double its volume.
- Add in the vanilla extract, marscapone and double cream and mix well.
- Spoon half of this creamy mixture over the first layer of sponge fingers.
- Make another layer of sponge fingers dipped in coffee in each ramekin, and top with the remaining cream mixture.
- To personalise your desserts for a dinner party, cut out some letters from cardboard and lay them on top of your tiramisus. Using a sieve, sprinkle cocoa powder over the top of the tiramisu from a height, and remove the cardboard to reveal your pretty lettering on top of the dessert.






- Place the tiramisu in the fridge to chill, preferably overnight. I served with baileys coffees.