Desie’s Tiramisu

Over the last 11 years I have made this dessert for 100-180 people. When I say to people I’m making it, they smile and look very happy. For the best flavour, make this the night before a dinner party. Here is the recipe for four people.

Ingredients:
1 pack of ladyfinger biscuits 400g of cream cheese, or 400g of mascarpone cheese (when you’re rich)
1 pint of double cream
Good coffee (real coffee of course, and please no instant coffee. If you do that you can’t say it’s Desie’s Tiramisu)
500g of caster sugar
1 bottle of Amaretto (you’ll only need a small part of the bottle, but it’s always handy to have some in the house, as it’s great for other desserts too)
500g of good dark chocolate (like Green & Black’s)
A bit of cocoa (like Green & Black’s)
A bit of vanilla essence (organic, it is expensive but the best)

Method:
First make 4 big cups of strong coffee and put it in a big bowl. Add 200g of caster sugar to the hot coffee, so the sugar can melt in the coffee. Put that to one side.

Then make the cream. Get another big bowl and put all the cream cheese in, then add the cream and the remaining 300g of caster sugar. Add 2 soup spoons of vanilla essence and whisk it all together.

Now get a nice, big ceramic tray. Get your coffee, which by now will be cool, and for 8 seconds tip your bottle of Amaretto into the coffee mix. Take 2 ladyfingers and soak for 7 seconds in the coffee, then put them in the tray. Do this until the whole of the bottom of the tray is full with soaked ladyfingers. Then cover them with the cream filling.

Then make another layer of soaked ladyfingers, and again cover them with the cream filling. Make sure you have 2 layers of ladyfingers and 2 layers of cream filling. Then cover the last cream filling layer generously with cocoa. Cut the chocolate in chunks and sprinkle it over the cocoa layer. That’s it just put it in the fridge.

Enjoy this recipe and I wish you joyful cooking.

Desie Opgenoort