Tiramisu--take two!

Last spring, I wrote about eating with some Italian friends on our roofdeck, and about the delicious tiramisu one of them brought. At the time I promised to post the recipe once I'd figured it out. Can you believe I've only just now done that? The first time I made it, it came out runny, so I had to e-mail our friend Vera, who was now back in Italy studying for the Italian bar exam, and after that one thing or another put off my second attempt.

Until last night, that is. My sister has been visiting for several days, and last night we ate up on the roof again. (We've eaten there other times in between, too, of course.) I made sure I had both super fresh eggs and Mascarpone, and C.Z. and I got to work, just in time for the one-year anniversary of Bob's official study of Italian!

First I beat three egg yolks and added 4 T. sugar to the yolks, mixing with a wooden spoon until we saw bubbles. You can add 1 T. rum here, but Vera omitted it, and so did we.

Meanwhile, C.Z. was beating egg whites into a stiff mass. This is where we went wrong last time, apparently. We only went so far as to get peaks before. "Oh, so you were supposed to make them so stiff you could rest your elbow on them," my sister commented dryly. "Yeah, apparently there's a special verb for that I missed in the Italian," I replied. I still haven't seen anyone else make this recipe, so just be warned that you might have to experiment with the egg whites a bit.

Also missing from the recipe was where to add in the Mascarpone. (Vera was writing from memory.) I tried adding it to the yolk and sugar mixture after I saw the bubbles, and Vera confirmed that I had done that correctly.

After we had both the creamy mixture (yolks, sugar and Mascarpone) and the stiff whites ready, we mixed them together with the wooden spoon, always stirring in the same direction, gently, until there were no lumps. Vera says add the whites to the cream, but we saw here that we would need to combine them into a larger bowl. No harm done, apparently.

After our filling was done, we made layers of cream and espresso-dipped tea cookies (LU and Balsen are two brands sold in the U.S.) until we had three layers of cream and two of cookies. (We used French roast coffee that we made in our press.)

Here's the finished product, after C.Z. decided that the unsweetened chocolate powder we sprinkled on top wasn't even, but that you couldn't really move it without making finger prints in the cream. We refrigerated it for two hours, and this time it was delicious! Supposedly, it's even better the next day, but we never get that far.

We ate our dinner on the roofdeck at dusk after a very hot day, and we had a nice breeze as we sat around in deck chairs looking at the lights, the few stars and the many more planes flying up the Hudson. Bob and C.Z. guessed the make of each plane and we discovered that C.Z.'s new contact lenses must work very well, because she could see details that we couldn't. It was so warm we could have slept up there in the deck chairs without blankets, but my sister had to catch an early plane of her own this morning, so we went down and washed dishes while she packed instead. Maybe next time!

Here, just for fun, is the original tiramisu recipe in Italian:

TIRAMISU

3 uova
4 cucchiai di zucchero
250 grammi mascarpone
1 cucchiaio di Rum
1 pacchetto di biscotti secchi
caffe
cacao amaro in polvere 2 cucchiai

Lavorare i 3 rossi delle uova con lo zucchero, con un mestolo di legno, fino ad ottenere una crema (quando fara' le bolle sara' pronta)

Aggiungere un cucchiaio di Rum

Montare a neve le chiare delle uova (devono risultare ben compatte, se liquide rovinano tutto) ed aggiungerle alla crema. Mescolare il tutto bene sempre nello stesso senso (in genere orario), non vi devono essere grumi.

Fare del caffe' (1 tazza grande) se possibile espresso e metterlo in una terrina bassa.

Prendere una ciotola e stendere uno strato di crema poi uno strato di biscotti, prima bagnati nel caffe', ben bagnati ma non si devono rompere, poi uno strato di crema e ancora di biscotti, finche' finiscono. Avanzare un po' di crame per ricoprire il tutto e spolverare con il cacao in polvere.

Importante la scelta dei biscotti secchi (qui a New York ho trovato la marca LU o BALSEN, sono rettangolari e piatti).

Mettere in frigo un paio di ore prima di mangiare, il giorno dopo e' sempre piu' buono.