Tiramisu

Tiramisu meaning ‘pick-me -up’ is a classic coffee flavored Italian dessert prepared with mascarpone cheese,espresso and ladyfingers.It has become very popular recently and is served in almost every Italian restaurants. You either love it or hate it,there’s no middle ground..

This was my second attempt to prepare Tiramisu,first time I completely messed it up.This time I followed Olive Garden’s recipe as per Shn’s suggestion and it came out perfect.Thanks Shn.

I’ve made a few changes here and there.This is how i made it…

Ingredients:-

Egg yolks – Of 3 eggs
Whole Milk – 1/4 cup
Granulated sugar – 1 cup

Mascarpone cheese – 3 cups
Cream cheese – 8 ounces or 1 cup
Vanilla Extract – 1/4 tsp

Ladyfingers /savioardi biscuits- around 25

Italian Coffee powder – 5tbsp (Use any Italian brand if possible.I used Illy brand.Other brands are Cello, Lavazza, Kimbo, Mauro etc.)
Hot water – 1 cup (for making espresso)

Kahlua or any coffee liquor – 1/4 cup

Cocoa powder/Grated chocolate- as needed

Method:-

Fill half of a medium sized sauce pan with water and allow it to boil.In a metal bowl whisk egg yolks,milk and sugar together.Simmer the boiling water and place the metal bowl on top of the sauce pan and stir the mixture often for 10-15 mts.You can also use double boiler instead of doing this.When the sugar dissolves,the egg mixture will begin to thicken.Remove from the sauce pan and allow it to cool.

To prepare espresso,boil 1 cup of water in a stove/microwave.Take it off from heat and add coffee powder into it.Mix it well and strain the coffee through a sieve.Allow it to cool.(Instead of preparing this you can buy espresso from Starbucks or any other coffee shop.)

Combine mascarpone cheese,cream cheese and vanilla extract together using an electric mixture.You’ve to mix it until it turns almost creamy with small chunks remaining.Add egg yolk mixture to the cheese mixture and combine them together.

Combine 1/4 cup cooled espresso and 1/4 cup Kahlua together.

Pour espresso-Kahlua mix into a flat plate so that it’ll be easy to dip the ladyfingers.Keep it aside.Dip each ladyfingers into the espresso-Kahlua mix and arrange it in a serving dish side by side.Ladyfingers will get soaked up very fast ,but we dont want to soak an entire ladyfinger.Dip only the bottom half of the ladyfinger ,the top half has to be dry.You can break the ladyfingers to fit into the dish.

Spoon half of the mascarpone cheese mixture over the ladys fingers.Sprinkle grated chocolate/cocoa powder over it.(I’ve used both chocolate and cocoa powder.Use it according to your choice.)Again arrange another layer of soaked ladyfingers over the cocoa/chocolate powder.Spoon remaining cheese mixture over ladyfingers and spread it evenly.

Cover and chill it for 8-10 hrs.Before serving sprinkle grated chocolate/cocoa powder over it.Cut into equal size square pieces and serve.

Note :- You can also prepare Tiramisu in dessert glasses/parfait glasses,so you can serve it right then and also you can save the extra time it takes to cut into desired shape.

Info:-I’ve read here that mascarpone cheese is available in Fiorano Restorante in Bangalore.I dont know about other cities.Also if anyone knows about the availability of ladyfingers in India,can you please let me know about it?

Related recipes:-

Pushpa’s Tiramisu Recipe

Eggless Tiramisu Recipe

Ladyfingers Recipe

Tiramisu without Alchohol from Shab’s Cuisine

Elmo Cake

 

My little boy turned 4 last week.And this time he wanted an “ELMO” cake.He’s not a great elmo fan,still he asked for it.Donno why…Kids..ah..they keep on changing their likings .

But i was not prepared for an elmo cake and i got only little time to plan something.So the easiest thing was to get a character cake pan. Personally,i don’t prefer character cake pans .If we could borrow them from someone,then its fine .Otherwise they are waste of money,how many elmo cakes are we going to bake ?

Anyway this cake is baked in a Wilton Elmo Face Cake Pan and is piped with hairs using Icing tip #233

I baked 2 elmo cakes and filled them with buttercream icing .

Check Sesame street cakes and leran how to make an elmo cake.

Simple White Cake

Ingredients :

All purpose flour(Maida) – 1 and 1/2 cups
Baking powder – 1 and 3/4 tsps
White sugar  – 1 cup
Unsalted Butter – 1/2 cup
Eggs – 2 large
Vanilla Extract – 2 tsps
Milk – 1/2 cup

(Note : All the ingredients have to be in the room temperature.)

Method:-

Sift together flour and baking powder and keep it aside.Preheat oven to 350 F and grease and flour a 9X9 inch cake pan.

Take a bowl and beat together sugar and butter until creamy.Beat in the eggs one by one,then stir in vanilla. Add the flour to the creamed mixture and mix them together.Finally stir in the milk until you get a smooth batter.

Pour it to the greased cake pan and bake for 30 -0 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.Cool in the pan for 15 minutes and then gently tap into the cooling rack.

Recipe adapted from All recipes.com

Kid’s Cake (Thomas & Friends)

This is the cake I decorated for my son’s 3rd birthday.He is a great Thomas fan and so I had to do something with the theme Thomas.It was a 2 tier cake covered with buttercream frosting,first tier was a white cake and the second one a chocolate.The pebbles were made of fondant and the Thomas track set is bought from Walmart bakery section.

Click on the above picture to see it enlarged

I know the pictures are not so good,I completely forget about taking pictures while struggling to put together the birthday party.So these are the only pictures I have with me now.So sorry guys,please bear with me for time being.

Checkout this too: Thomas the Tank Engine Tutorial

Cracked Wheat Mango Cake

Here’s another recipe which i’ve tried out recently.I found this in Krishna & Arjuna’s World and this seems very innovative and interesting to me.Somehow I messed up my first attempt and cracked wheat didn’t cook well . So next time I didn’t want to take a risk and so precooked the wheat before mixing it with the other ingredients.The cake came out pretty well and i loved every single bite of it especially with that mango sauce as a topping.

Thanks again to Krishna & Arjuna.

Ingredients:-

For Cake:

Cracked Wheat cooked until water is absorbed- 3/4 cup
Egg whites – Of 3 large eggs
Granulated Sugar – 1/2 cup
Unsalted Butter(In room temperature) – 1 stick
Vanilla Extract – 1 tsp
Baking Powder – 1 tsp
Mango Pulp – 1 cup
Almonds chopped – 1 tbsp

For Mango Sauce :

Mango Pulp – 1/2 cup
Sugar – 3 tbsp
Water – 3 tbsp

Method:-

Preparing the Cake :

Beat together egg whites and sugar untill it gets fluffy.Add rest of the ingredients and mix well.Preheat oven to 350 degrees and pour the cake mixture into a greased pan.Bake it for approx 30 min or until a tooth pick inserted at the centre comes out clean.Allow it to cool well,cut into squares and serve with mango sauce.

Preparing Mango Sauce :

Heat sugar and water in a pan until the sugar is melted,add mango pulp into it,mix well and switch off the heat.Allow it to sit for few minutes.Mango sauce is ready to be served.Pour a spoon full of sauce over the cake piece,decorate with almonds and serve.

Note :Krishnarjuna suggests ricotta cheese or yogurt instead of butter for a lower fat version.

Onashamsakal & AdaPradhaman

Wishing you all a very happy and prosperous Onam

AdaPradhaman is an indispensable factor in a Kerala Sadya.As per the name Ada is the main ingredient here,it is very similar to pasta in texture and is made of rice or maida.Ada when cooked in milk and sugar is called Palada and when cooked in coconut milk and jaggery is AdaPradhaman.The traditional method of preparing Ada is very laborious and time consuming.But Ada is now easily available to us,even in Indian grocery stores outside India.

Back home,my mother-in-law uses Maida Ada for preparing Adapradhaman,and rice ada is used only for making Palada.But here I’ve used Rice Ada in my Adapradhaman as I couldn’t find any Maida Ada here.

Ingredients:-

Ada(Maida Ada is the best) – 1/4 kg
Jaggery(Sharkkara) – 1/2 kg
Sabudhana(Chowari) cooked – 1 cup
Ghee (Neyyu)- 1/2 – 1 cup
Thin Coconut milk (Randaam Paalu)- 3 cups
Thick coconut milk(Onnam Paalu) – 1 cup
Cardamom powder (Elakka Podi)-1/2 tsp
Broken Cashewnuts (Andiparippu)- as needed
Raisins (Unakka munthiri)- as needed
Coc0nut pieces chopped (Thengakkothu)- as needed

Method:-

Cook Ada as per the directions on the packet,allow it to cool and drain.Melt jaggery adding 1/2 cup of water and strain it to remove any unwanted particles in the jaggery.Jaggery you get in U.S is very good and you might not want to do the straining part.Now heat a big vessel(preferrably Uruli if you have one),add the melted jaggery into it,stir well and add cooked ada into it.Continue stirring until you’ve attained a medium thick consistency,adding ghee in between to prevent it from sticking.Now add thin coconut milk,mix well and add cooked sabudhana into it.Allow it to simmer for 10- 15 minutes.Switch off the heat and add thick coconut milk,mix well and add cardamom powder into it.Stir again and keep it aside.

Heat ghee in a small pan and fry coconut pieces,cashewnuts and raisins.Now add these into the Payasam.Mix and serve hot or cold.