Tiramisu, my love. I was extremely ambitious when I first started baking many years ago and actually one of the first recipes I attempted was tiramisu. And I just fell in love. The richest, most luscious dessert anyone could dream of. And the funny thing was I had to ask my mom to buy me a little thing of Kahlua, a coffee liqueur, cause I was still very underage!
Often, tiramisu is thought of as a fairly advanced recipe despite being just a layer cake. The difficulty lies in the cream and how you make it. There are many recipes out there for various kinds of creams. But the commonality of all recipes is the use of mascarpone, this amazing creamy cheese that simply melts in your mouth. Then there’s many variations on how much heavy cream and eggs to use. And even further, how do you incorporate them all? Do you cook the eggs? Do you use egg yolks only or whole eggs or omit them all entirely?
And the biggest question of them all:
How do you make a tiramisu cream that is not runny?
From personal experience, it is incredibly hard, if not impossible to recover a runny tiramisu filling. Since the first couple times I made tiramisu, the next couple were ridiculed with failures due to a runny cream. I’ve googled, I’ve experimented, but you just gotta start all over if it’s messed up. It’s tragic, but it seriously will not set in the fridge no matter what you do. As much as eggs can help thicken a cream, heating up any other ingredient will cause the cream to revert back to a liquid. So there is truly no fix once you’ve mixed everything together.
However, I will say this: If your tiramisu cream is too runny (not with my recipe it shouldn’t but with others maybe), freeze it and eat it as tiramisu ice cream! You won’t regret it!
This recipe I’m about to share with you, I believe to be fool proof. Each ingredient is whisked till stiff peaks form and slowly folded into the mascarpone. And it just holds beautifully. If you’re ever worried, about any tiramisu recipe, I’d advise to leave out the egg whites. That was the tipping point for my past failures, but with this recipe, you whip it with sugar to help stabilize and thicken the egg whites, preventing the possibility of liquidation.
The resulting cream won’t hold stiff peaks anymore but should not be runny. It’s thicker than pancake batter, just as thick as banana bread batter. And if you’re worried, stick it in the fridge and you should see that the sides will have thickened up. But you don’t need to refrigerate it before layering unless you’re doing an open cake, as in not in a pan. After layering, remember to refrigerate for a few hours until it truly sets. Just wait and you’ll see! (Unlike my impatience to try a slice here)
So, here we are, a Foolproof Tiramisu layered with 2 layers of light genoise cake coated in a coffee syrup and layered with a rich mascarpone-cream-egg filling and topping! Follow along with this photo instruction or the recipe below!
Genoise Cake: Combine 4 eggs and 2/3 cup sugar on a double boiler (bowl over pan with boiling water). Stir in 1 cup flour. Pour into pans and bake at 350ºF for 15 min. Then brush coffee-Kahlua mixture on top.
Tiramisu Cream: Beat 16 oz mascarpone with 2 Tbsp Kahlua. Whisk 4 egg yolks and 1/4 cup sugar over a double boiler until thick and beat into mascarpone. See next image for combined result.
In a separate bowl, whisk 1 cup heavy cream to get stiff peaks. Fold into mascarpone mixture. Top bowl is whipped cream, bottom bowl is mascarpone mixture from previous step. Right image is the result.
Whisk 2 egg whites with 1/4 sugar and salt to stiff peaks. Fold into mascarpone mixture again. This is the final mascarpone mixture. Feel free to let it sit in the fridge a little before assembly. Not too long though! It still needs to be spreadable.
Assembly: Get the stations ready. Place the bottom cake layer on your serving board/cake stand/pan with sides. Here I use foil to help line everything up. Layer half the mascarpone, add cocoa powder and repeat with the other layer!
And refrigerate (unlike here where I took it out too soon and was too impatient, ha!)
Foolproof Tiramisu
Ingredients
Genoise
- 4 large eggs
- 2/3 cup white sugar
- 1 cup all purpose flour, sifted
- 1/4 cup strong black coffee
- 2 Tbsp Kahlua (or other liqueur)
Tiramisu Cream
- 16 oz mascarpone
- 2 Tbsp Kahlua (or other liqueur)
- 4 large eggs yolks
- 2 large egg whites
- 1/2 cup white sugar, divided
- 1 cup heavy cream, chilled
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder (optional, for dusting)
Instructions
- Genoise: Preheat oven to 350ºF. Butter 2 cake pans. Circular or square 8-9 in pans work.
- In a heatproof bowl, combine eggs and sugar. Slowly heat it the egg mixture on a double boiler (see note) until well combined and creamy for a few minutes. Egg should not coagulate. Remove from heat.
- With a hand mixer (or stand mixer), whisk the eggs until double in volume and thick. It will naturally cool down in this process.
- Fold in the flour into the egg mixture and pour into prepared pans. Bake for 15 minutes until barely set. Cool and remove from pan.
- Meanwhile, mix the coffee and Kahlua together. Brush the syrup on both tops of the cake and let it soak in the liquid. Set aside.
- Tiramisu Filling: In a large bowl, beat the mascarpone and Kahlua together until smooth. Set aside.
- In a heatproof bowl for a double boiler, whisk together egg yolks and 1/4 cup sugar. Place the bowl on top of your pot of boiling water and continue to whisk the egg yolks until foamy and well combined for a few minutes. Remove from heat and beat into mascarpone. It's okay that it's hot.
- Whisk the heavy cream and vanilla extract to stiff peaks. Be careful not to over-whisk. Fold into the mascarpone egg mixture.
- Whisk the egg whites and salt until foamy. Then beat in the 1/4 cup sugar until stiff peaks form. Fold into marscapone mixture.
- If needed, refrigerate the cream for 30 minutes to thicken. Otherwise, if layering in a dish with sides, continue.
- Assembly: Begin with the first cake layer. Spread half of the cream on top. Dust cocoa powder on top. Then repeat again with by adding the second cake layer and spreading the rest of the mascarpone cream. Repeat a final dusting of cocoa powder for a beautiful finish. Chill for at least 4 hours, or until set.
- For presentation, cut the outer edges to reveal a clean cut edge. Cut the cake into slices and enjoy!
Notes
- Double boiler: essentially a bowl/pot on top of another pot with boiling water. Prepare this by simply boiling water in a pot that would hold up your heatproof bowl. Make sure bottom of bowl does not touch the boiling water.
- Egg whites: for beating egg whites into peaks, it is very important that the bowl and whisk are clean. Any impurities, including egg yolks will deform the whites.
- It can be helpful to hold the cream together by lining foil around the base cake layer. This acts like a wall if you don't have a pan/dish with sides to assemble the cake in. To do this, take a long, wide strip (or multiple strips) of foil and line it up with the base cake layer. The strip should be as tall as the full cake, so 4-5 inches should suffice. Then cover the cake layer with cream and push it to the sides touching the foil. This helps the foil from staying upright without the need of tape. Remove the foil once the cream has set in the fridge.
- To create clean cuts, use a knife dipped in hot water and clean the knife between cuts and reheat the blade.
- Genoise adapted from Meilleur du Chef
- Tiramisu cream adapted from Sally's Baking Addiction
Did you make this recipe?
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