Tiramisu

On Saturday we were very excited to have the fabulous Hannah Ward visiting us from Sheffvegas for the night. We decided to make a three-course Italian meal - a bit boring but we figured, hey, you can't go wrong with a bit of Italian. For the desert we wanted to do a Tiramisu but with a twist.

Well, the twist was supposed  to be that we were going to make a Black Cherry Tiramisu and had a dead good Simon Rimmer recipe all lined up... but disaster struck when our local Asda failed us - there were absolutely no cherries in syrup on sale whatsover! Boo! 

So, I decided I would just revisit the good old Jamie Oliver recipe for 'Quick Tiramisu' from the excellent Jamie's Italy book which I love. I've made Jamie's Tiramisu so many times I could probably do it in my sleep, but there are a few tweaks I decided to / had to do this time.

Firstly, Bailey requested that I soak the boudoir fingers at the bottom of the Tiramisu in less coffee than Jamie suggests as in the past it has been a bit too sloppy for Bailey's liking. Probably not the most authentic but I always want to please my diners! Secondly, I put less grated dark chocolate on the top of the Tiramisu than the recipe suggested as it was getting a bit ridiculous. Thirdly, we had already bought a nice bottle of port for our Black Cherry Tiramisu so I had to substitute that for the sherry in Jamie's recipe.

The Tiramisu turned out quite good even with all the tweaks and I was very happy when the lovely Miss Ward told me Tiramisu is one of her favourite deserts! Presentation-wise it was a bit jokes given that I underestimated the size of the new trifle dish my mum bought us and it looked a bit silly all bunched up at the bottom of such a massive dish!

Still, we all enjoyed it and I have to confess I went in there for the leftovers with a spoon the following morning! Yikes!

Recipe:
15 boudoir fingers
200ml strong coffee
4 tablespoons caster sugar
500g mascarpone
1 tsp vanilla extract
140ml port
50g dark chocolate

Arrange the boudoir fingers in the bottom of a dish on top of eachother.

Sweeten the coffee with two tablespoons of the sugar, before pouring over the sponge fingers.

Put the mascarpone in a bowl and whip it up with the remaining sugar. Add the vanilla extract and the port to the mascarpone and mix well.

Spread the mascarpone mix over the boudoir fingers and grate the dark chocolate all over the top of the desert for presentation and chocolatey yumminess. Leave in the fridge to cool until it's time to serve! Italianissimo.