Tiramisu — It's All in the Details

Documenting the details of a recipe

“Der Teufel steckt im Detail” (The devil is in the details) — Nietzsche

As the popular saying goes, the devil is in the details. Sometimes, a lot of details go into making something, and then we forget about the details.
Most of the time, that’s the case.

Hence, I learned, as any good software engineer does, that documentation is very important!

So welcome to a documentation of my Tiramisu recipe.

First, let’s start with… “great artists steal.” So my recipe is from the NY Times’ classic Tiramisu recipe by Alison Roman. But with a lot more details.

Let’s start with the ingredients list:

1. Whipping Cream — any brand is fine here, and that 1-quart size is really too large for this project. so buy a smaller one if you read this far.
2. Cocoa powder — I like this organic Whole Foods brand a lot. It tastes quite refreshing with milk. so you can just use it as a hot chocolate.
3. Coffee — Hazelnut Trader Joe’s. I brew mine with a Moka Pot from Bialetti.
4. Mascapone — BelGioioso is a standard brand. It’s so good. Once you buy this, you might want to stop buying cream cheese or butter completely.
5. Lady Finger — Perhaps the most important ingredient for me here. Vicenzi’s large pack. It’s 400g. And inside the bag, there are 4 individual packaged bags in there. This is big enough for me to make 2 batches. Buy the 200g bag if you only plan to make Tiramisu once.

Ok, if you have made it this far, I’m going to assume that you have read the NYT Classic Tiramisu. (If you haven’t, it’s necessary to understand the rest of the details.)

One adjustment I made to it is: instead of 4 Egg Yolks, I use only 2 due to cholesterol concerns. It still gives that classic Yellow hue to the final cream mixture, and I think it doesn’t impact the taste at all.

You want to be very generous with the coffee. For my 3-cup Moka pot (the smallest size for Bialetti), each brew is only enough to dip 9 lady fingers. So you can do a draft run and try to figure out how many lady fingers you need for each layer and how many layers ahead of time. For a 5 inch X 9 inch baking dish, I used 3 moka pots’ worth of coffee.

If you don’t have a moka pot, I would suggest espresso shots instead. Regular drip coffee would not be strong enough when mixed with all the cream.

I made this dessert twice recently. They were both very successful. My neighbors enjoyed it very much.

And as an Asian, I give it a big compliment: “It’s not overly sweet.” The strong Moka pot coffee creates a very nice balance. I generally never like desserts that only taste sweet.

If I think of any details, I will add more. Give it a try at home! I think it has a very high success rate as you can taste each element before assembling the dish.

Ohh, of course, many variations can be made to the cream mixture. I personally love Mango. Or a splash of vanilla extract. You can add Amaretto or a little Rum. “The world is your oyster,” as they say.