Eggless Tiramisu

I have been thinking of making this ever since I watched the show ( Wish to see you again, starring Vic Chou . sigh .. ) In one scene, a protagonist made Tiramisu to woo his girl friend and it seemed so easy . The predicament of Vic Chou was a distraction and I missed step 2 to 13. Tut tut.

Since I am not sure about the freshness of eggs in our supermarket, I have decided to go eggless for this Tiramisu. Since Pat is crazy about all things cheese, this should satisfy him. I have never made Tiramisu at home before, so with no benchmark, hopefully the absence of egg yolks will not be missed very much.

Feel free to use low fat versions of cheeses. It ends up just as good as the real thing.

And not to worry, I figured out steps 2 to 13 in the end. So here goes ..


Ingredients:
Espresso, freshly brewed, with 2 table spoons of castor sugar ( sigh, reminds me of Rome’s café at Eustachio )

Mascarpone Filling :
1 tub cream cheese
3 T caster sugar
250g mascarpone cheese, softened to room temperature
1 pack ladyfingers biscuits ( Made in Italy fingers, can be had from Giant / Cold Storage for less than $4 )
2 T cocoa powder ( I use Van Houton 100% pure cocoa, 30% cocoa butter type or get the best in the store )


Filling :
Whip cream cheese with sugar
Fold softened mascarpone into cream cheese.

Method :
Place a layer of ladyfingers or sponge fingers at the bottom of a shallow baking dish or dessert bowls
Sprinkle lady fingers with fresh espresso
Add cheese mixture
Alternate layers with fingers , drizzle remaining expresso and cheese mixture.
Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 24 hours before serving.

Immediately before serving, shake cocoa from a fine strainer on Tiramisu surface. If you do it before chilling, the cocoa turns wet from condensation. That however was no issue with me. It was eaten up too quickly to be noticed.

I was a little too self-indulgent and shaved chocolate on top of the cocoa as well. It’s a bit overdone this way, but I like a little sweetness to go with the cocoa powder.

Just right for a party of 9 or 10. 3 of us finished 6 portions in a sitting and while waiting for digestion to complete, we eagerly await demolishing the rest of the Tiramisu.