limoncello tiramisu
[or even guavaberry-lingonberry tiramisu]
Separately both tiramisu and limoncello found their way across the Atlantic
from Italy near the end of the twentieth century. It was only a matter of time
before they would eventually meet each other in this natural pairing on both
sides of the ocean. We tried it once in an area restaurant appropriately named
Limoncello, but never found the occasion to experiment with our own version.
Finally at the suggestion of ms_ani, the team trained its cross-hairs on the
target dish and, after the mandatory Google search, decided to stick with our
basic successful bad egg recipe as much as possible
(no uncooked egg components) and substitute the coffee soaking liquid by a simple
diluted lemon syrup. Lidia's recipe was most convincing, so we went with a
slightly altered version of her lemon dunking fluid.
We performed the experiment for a Friday evening meeting of friends away from
home, so there was no chance to photograph the result the first time, but the
compliments of many of the guests convinced us together with our own sampling
that this one is to repeat. Not as heavy as cheesecake, but it delivers the
message.
ingredients
- mousse
- 4 egg yolks
- 1/2 c sugar
- 4 T = 1/4 c limoncello liqueur
- 1 lb or 500g fresh mascarpone
- 1 c whipping cream
- lemon dunking syrup
- 1 c water
- 1/4 c sugar
- 2 4 T limoncello liqueur
- juice of 5 or 6 lemons
- zest of 2 lemons
- dunkees
- 250g ladyfingers (about 30) for a 10 in round springform pan
- topping
- serve with optional raspberries (our first choice), strawberry pieces or blueberries
arranged on top
of the cake or with each portion
instructions
- Separate 4 egg yolks from their whites and put the yolks in the top of a
double boiler pot with the sugar and beat on high speed with electric
beaters until they are light yellow.
- Add the limoncello and place the top in the
bottom half of the double boiler already boiling away. Keep
beating for about 10 minutes till it thickens and an instant read
thermometer reads at least 160º. Then transfer this zabaglione to a cool
bowl, cover with plastic wrap touching the surface of the creamy mixture and put in the freezer for rapid cool-down.
- For the dunking syrup, bring the water, sugar, limoncello, lemon zest
and lemon juice to a boil and stir around a few minutes so the sugar
dissolves. Let cool slightly or even longer while you prepare the mousse.
- Put a medium bowl and the beaters
in the freezer to chill for at least 10 minutes. Then whip the cream using
the cold bowl and beaters. Then beat the mascarpone
a bit by hand until soft (not too much or it might lose its smoothness) and mix in the cooled zabaglione. Fold in the whipped cream so you don't lose the
fluff.
- Assembly time. Trace the bottom of a 10 in diameter springform pan on
parchment paper, cut out the round and put in the bottom of the spring form
pan, inverted so that the rim is down. This helps for removal of the finished product if necessary later.
- Take each ladyfinger and dip in a shallow bowl with the strained dunking syrup
sufficiently cooled. Roll it around
quickly twice, then remove it and place in the pan. Make one layer. Cover with half the
mascarpone mousse mixture. Repeat.
- Cover with plastic wrap and leave in the refrigerator at least 24 hours but preferably 48. It takes time for the
flavors to mix between the mousse and soaked ladyfingers, which really takes
longer than a day. Sure it's hard to wait that long but the sacrifice is worth making.
- Before serving, remove from the refrigerator so that it can soften up a
bit. And decorate with those raspberries or strawberries or your choice of
topping appropriate for a lemon base.
notes
- Lidia Bastianich's
limoncello tiramisu.
- Previous tiramisu recipes: the early version,
the gold standard, a
strawberry variation, a pumpkin variation.
- On our second rendition, we did a half-recipe without overnight flavor
maturing time, only 6 hours before serving. To compensate for the lack of
timne for slow flavor invasion, bob perhaps dipped those ladyfingers a bit
too long to soak up more fluid, so the result was a bit more lemony than we
would have liked. Experiment here.
- We used raspberries, but strawberries will also work, even cut pieces in
the middle layer.
- If limoncello can jump from cheesecake to tiramisu, perhaps
guavaberry-lingonberry can make the same
cross-over trip, with guavaberry liqueur in the zabaglione and lingonberries
over the middle mousse layer. We'll keep you informed.
- Illustrations available.
guavaberry-lingonberry tiramisu
Why stop here? All these flavor choices are great for cheesecakes and
gelato and so why not tiramisu? Since our
guavaberry-lingonberry cheesecake is dr
bob's personal favorite, it was the next logical choice for tiramisu
translation. Just substitute guavaberry liqueur (ha! try getting your hands on
that!) for the limoncello in the zabaglione mousse, and for the dipping sauce,
well, when we discovered our lingonberry concentrate had gone way bad from aging
years in the cupboard, we just put 4 T of the guavaberry liqueur in the dunking
syrup omitting the lemon juice and zest (maybe next time we will forget the
sugar, since the mousse is sweet enough surrounding the ladyfingers). Once the first layer of mousse was laid
down over the lower ladyfinger layer, smaller than level teaspoon quantities
were dropped around evenly, say about 1/3 c altogether, just enough to give
contrast without overwhelming the delicate guavaberry mousse. Then the remaining
ladyfinger layer and mousse layer were laid down.
We will be doing this again after guests gave really positive feedback to
confirm our own reaction to the final product. [Confirmed a second time! Yummo!] Somehow we will have to renew our
supply of the guavaberry liqueur. Anyone going on vacation to St Martin from the
Philly area?
Since guavaberry liqueur is definitely out of reach for most of you, just
blend together 1/4 c of lingonberry preserves with 1/2 c rum to use in the
mousse and dunking syrup below. Or consider substituting the raspberry liqueur
Chambord for the guavaberry liqueur,
and let us know how it goes. You won't regret the experiment. Maybe we'll even
get around to it. One of these days.
ingredients
- mousse
- 4 egg yolks
- 1/2 c sugar
- 4 T = 1/4 c guavaberry liqueur [or 1/4 c rum blended with 1/8 c
lingonberry preserves, or Chambord]
- 1 lb or 500g fresh mascarpone
- 1 c whipping cream
- red dunking syrup
- 1 c water
- 4 T = 1/4 c guavaberry liqueur [or 1/4 c rum blended
with 1/8 c lingonberry preserves, or Chambord]
- dunkees
- 250g ladyfingers (about 30) for a 10 in round springform pan
- lingonberries
- 1/3 c lingonberry preserves
- topping
- serve with optional raspberries (our first choice), strawberry pieces or blueberries
arranged on top
of the cake or with each portion
instructions
- Separate 4 egg yolks from their whites and put the yolks in the top of a
double boiler pot with the sugar and beat on high speed with electric
beaters until they are light yellow.
- Add the liqueur and place the top in the
bottom half of the double boiler already boiling away. Keep
beating for about 10 minutes till it thickens and an instant read
thermometer reads at least 160º. Then transfer this zabaglione to a cool
bowl, cover with plastic wrap touching the surface of the creamy mixture and put in the freezer for rapid cool-down.
- For the dunking syrup, bring the water, sugar and liqueur to a boil and stir around a few minutes so the sugar
dissolves. Let cool slightly or even longer while you prepare the mousse.
- Put a medium bowl and the beaters
in the freezer to chill for at least 10 minutes. Then whip the cream using
the cold bowl and beaters. Then beat the mascarpone
a bit by hand until soft (not too much or it might lose its smoothness) and mix in the cooled zabaglione. Fold in the whipped cream so you don't lose the
fluff.
- Assembly time. Trace the bottom of a 10 in diameter springform pan on
parchment paper, cut out the round and put in the bottom of the spring form
pan, inverted so that the rim is down. This helps for removal of the finished product if necessary later.
- Take each ladyfinger and dip in a shallow bowl with the dunking syrup
sufficiently cooled. Roll it around
quickly twice, then remove it and place in the pan. Make one layer. Cover with half the
mascarpone mousse mixture.
- Drop small spoonfuls (1 t) of lingonberry preserves around the surface,
then marble them into the mousse slightly.
- Barely cover with 1/2 the remaining mousse and then sparingly drop
smaller spoonfuls, say 1/3 t, around the surface and slightly marble. Then
cover completely with the remaining mousse. Or just skip the lingonberries
here.
- Cover with plastic wrap and leave in the refrigerator at least 24 hours. It takes time for the
flavors to mix between the mousse and soaked ladyfingers, which really takes
longer than a day. Sure it's hard to wait that long but the sacrifice is worth making.
- Before serving, remove from the refrigerator so that it can soften up a
bit. And decorate with those raspberries or strawberries or your choice of
topping appropriate for a lemon base.
notes
- We tried this a month later in Rome but failed to get to IKEA for the
lingonberry preserves. Instead we managed to find cranberry preserves from
Castroni to substitute for their cousins the lingonberries. And we picked up
a small bottle of some wierd overly sweet red rum mixture for pasticceria
applications to substitute for the liqueur. In spite of bob's dislike for
the rum product, the dessert was a smashing success. We had some excess
mousse left over and so made a little plastic container full to freeze, and
enjoyed it again a few weeks later. This is way better than the limoncello
version, no matter how hard you try to screw it up.
- One of our friends came to the rescue with another bottle of guavaberry
liqueur returning from a Christmas cruise, so we tried this again but in a
smaller version with a 250g mascarpone but the full zabaglione recipe in an
8 inch springform pan with only 14 ladyfingers (all we had left) and 3/4 c
cream, but it was a bit too sweet; we should have cut the zabaglione in half
to let the nonsweet mascarpone balance it out.
-
Illustrations
available.