Classic tiramisu recipe

Have you ever watched Hell’s Kitchen where Gordon Ramsay rips through young chefs in his kitchen with his foul mouth and mean face? Gordon Ramsay has always scared me somewhat. If I was ever going to work in a kitchen, I wouldn’t want him as my boss because I would be too scared to do anything right. I really don’t work well when someone’s constantly nagging and yelling in the background, similar to what my dad would do when I was learning to drive.

He was my instructor for a good few months and every time we went on the road, I would get scared of what he would say if I did anything remotely wrong. I eventually got my license, but now my brother is undergoing the same fate.

Even though Gordon Ramsay and my dad are both scary and bad tempered, they are both very good at what they do, I guess that’s why they are able to get so hot tempered – because they have passion and they think they’re always right.

That’s why I decided to try this Gordon Ramsay recipe for the perfect tiramisu. No eggs were used in this recipe and it really was very fast and very simple.

The most important was the taste of course and that was also quite spot on. I like my tiramisu quite boozy so I added extra Marsala to the coffee to dip the sponge fingers. I also changed the booze to half Marsala and half Khalua for an extra coffee hit just because I had it on hand.

Classic Tiramisu
Adapted from Gordon Ramsay’s recipe

Time to make: 20 minutes
Time to chill: 1 hour

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

• 250g mascarpone cheese
• 150ml strong coffee (I used 3 tbsp granulated coffee with 150ml hot water) – cooled to room temperature
• 150ml thickened cream
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp Marsala brandy and extra 2 tbsp for coffee mixture
• 2 tbsp Khalua (or Tia Maria)
• 12 sponge fingers (or more if they fit)
• 4 tbsp icing sugar
• cocoa powder & grated dark chocolate to garnish

Instructions

1. In one large bowl, whisk mascarpone cheese, vanilla extract, 2 tbsp Marsala, Khalua and 50ml coffee with a hand mixer until all mixed through.
2. In another bowl, whisk the cream and icing sugar until smooth (or almost at soft peaks).
3. Fold cream through the mascarpone mixture.
4. Pour remaining coffee into a bowl that’s big enough to fit a whole sponge finger into. Mix in 2 tbsp Marsala with the coffee mixture.
5. Dip each sponge finger (on both sides) in the coffee mixture until almost soft and set aside. Continue with remaining sponge fingers.
6. Lay the bottom of a serving tray (or serving glasses) with a layer of soaked sponge fingers, breaking in half if need to.
7. Add a layer of the mascarpone cheese mixture, then another layer of soaked sponge fingers, then a final layer of the mascarpone cheese mixture.
8. Put into the fridge to chill for an hour. (I found putting it in for only 20 minutes didn’t chill it enough or allowed the flavours to strengthen).
9. Dust tiramisu with cocoa powder and grated dark chocolate, serve chilled.

Have you ever wanted to work in a kitchen? Would you still want to if the head chef is like Gordon Ramsay?

Tagged as: alcohol, desserts, Italian, Recipes