Matcha Tiramisu...

... or as my friend C dubbed it, "Tea"ramisu.

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up a brick of whipping cream that someone was giving away for free in the building (freebies are always nice). Then last week, I picked up a ricotta at the supermarket. I was really in the mood for making tiramisu, except.............. I only have about 5 spéculoos cookies left. That wasn't going to be enough.

While digging through the various drawers in our little student apartment, I found the pack and a half of digestive cookies I had left from last semester. So I opted for matcha-flavored tiramisu!

I followed my normal recipe. While whipping up the whipping cream to soft peaks, I added matcha powder and a bit of icing sugar, taste-testing in the process until I was satisfied with the flavor and color (I had so many matcha bakes that came out not tasting nearly strong enough.....). Then instead of dipping the cookies in coffee/decaf, I brewed some green tea and dunked them in that. then came layering. I originally wanted to make the heart out of green matcha, but due to the cream's pale green color, the matcha wasn't coming out as strongly as I wanted. So chocolate it was.

Tutorial to normal tiramisu yonder this way~

Durian Tiramisu

June 24, 2015

One day, my uncle bought a lot of durian pieces. My cousin being in another city, there was no way the two of us would finish them as is. Personally, I don't find durian particularly bad, just that they are pretty rich and creamy, and I can't eat too much in one go.

Then my uncle asked me if I could make a tiramisu out of it. Having never heard of the concept, I looked it up and found a few recipes. Some replaced the usual mascarpone (or ricotta in my version) with the durian. Others just added it in. Since my uncle had already bought a tub of mascarpone, I added the mashed durian flesh in for flavor and extra creaminess.

 

Being in China, I was way out of my natural environment, and a lot of ingredients I usually find usually were unavailable. Therefore, for the base, I made a vegan pound cake that I flavored with lemon in an effort to cut through the richness of the durian and mascarpone. I made the cake in a square cake pan, then cut it so that the cake retained its shape but each piece was half as thick. The first half was set back in the pan and moistened with Darjeeling tea before being covered in a layer of durian cream. I then repeated the layering with the 2nd half of cake.

Even in the tiramisu, the durian was pretty strong, but that might have been because I put a lot to try and finish it.

Since I didn't feel like that powdered chocolate would work well on top of lemon and durian, I hunted for another option. My aunt had given me some powdered hibiscus extract to give to my uncle, and after a quick taste test, it seemed to work fine as it also had a hint of tartness.

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 1 pound cake (flavored as desired) -- see one of the previous recipes
• 200 mL whipping cream
• 200 g durian flesh
• 150 g mascarpone
• tea of choice

  Procedure

1. Bake (or buy) and slice a pound cake.
2. Whip the whipping cream into mid-stiff peaks. No need to add sugar.
3. Mash the durian flesh until creamy. Mix with the mascarpone.
4. Fold into the whipped cream.
5. Layer a pan, small ramekins, or other container with a layer of sliced pound cake. Soak in some tea.
6. Add a layer of durian cream.
7. Repeat until all the cake and/or cream is used up, finishing with a cream layer.
8. Dust some powdered hibiscus extract or other decorative goods.
9. Refrigerate min. 4 hours, but preferably overnight.

Tiramisu #...9?

Here we have yet another round of tiramisu, which I whipped up for a cousin who was visiting and would be leaving the next day. These were also the tiramisus that confirmed that baking works as a therapy for me when I'm super stressed.

I also confirmed this time that I need 3 layers of spéculoos cookies between cream layers. I got some decaffeinated coffee this time, which helps for my friends who are very sensitive to caffeine.

Want to know how to make it? Head over to my tutorial!

Tiramisu in Jars (2)

On October 11th, my cousin requested I make more tiramisus. Just like last time, I fell in love with the idea of mini tiramisus in jars.

This time, however, I made a full batch of ricotta-cream mix -- more than I could contain in the 4 small jars that remained in my cupboard. I had to enlist the help of some short drinking glasses that are roughly the same size as the mini jars.

Some of the hearts are unfortunately off-center due to my haste while decorating them. That did not affect the taste in the least.

Head over to this post for a tutorial on how to make this super easy dessert. It's only down point is that you cannot eat it right after making it!

Tiramisu in Jars (1)

Last week, I had some remaining ricotta to use up, so I went and made 2 small tiramisus in these little jars that I bought corn in.

As usual (see tutorial), I layered coffee-soaked Spéculoos cookies with a cream-ricotta mixture, then used a stencil to dust chocolate powder on top. I remade the stencil, because the one I had made out of scrap paper in the past bent too much for continuous use. Therefore, I made a new one out of a large index card.

Egg-free Berry Tiramisu with Génoise Sponge

 

We celebrated a late Fathers' Day (it was on the 8th, here in Belgium) yesterday, since my brother could not make it on the actual day. Due to the hot weather lately, I felt we needed something refreshing for dessert.

I settled for a tiramisu with homemade sponge. I used this recipe as a base for the egg-free génoise sponge cake, but subbed some vanilla extract instead of using strawberry flavor. I was also out if oil, so I melted some butter and used that instead.

I baked it flat, because I intended to cut strips out of it to roll into spirals to fit into the glasses. That originally beautiful plan fell through as the cake just broke while I was trying to roll it. Too bad. I then went and ripped it into little squares and soaked them in some mint tea I had made by steeping mint leaves from the garden in some hot water.

All this time, I was busy defrosting my frozen mixed berries (raspberries, currants, blackcurrants, blueberries, strawberries).

Then I beat some whipping cream into soft peaks, and mixed in some ricotta and some sugar.

Time to layer everything~ I put tea-soaked sponge in the glasses (I made 10 of them), followed by a layer of cream mix, topped with spoonfuls of berries. Then I repeated these steps, and used the last layer of berries to decorate.

I originally wanted to try and make hearts out of the round berries (currants, blackcurrants, blueberries), but it turned kind of messy, especially with the juice flowing everywhere. So I settled for a standing raspberry and a carpet of other berries. Due to the lack of color contrast, I decided to add a few mint leaves on top.

The effect would have been even better if there hadn't been juice flowing everywhere, but by that time, I was too dead tired to try and really drain every spoonful of berries.

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EGGLESS GENOISE SPONGE RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 1 cup (245 g) yogurt
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup (111 g) oil
• 1/2 up (100 g) sugar
• flavor

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven at 200°C for 10 mins.
2. Sieve flour twice (I went for 4 times) then set aside.
3. Cream yogurt and sugar until sugar has completely dissolved. Add baking soda and baking powder, and whisk/beat for 2 mins. Leave aside for another 5 mins until bubbles have formed.
4. Add oil and flavor. Then add in flour little by little and beat until smooth.
5. Bake at 200°C for 10 mins, then reduce heat to 180°C and abake for 30-35 mins.

Mini Tiramisu

For the last hallway dinner of the semester, I volunteered to make dessert. To feed 9 (+ my cousin), I either had to make a large cake, or a bunch of mini-desserts.

Our hallway is funny: we have someone who's slightly lactose intolerant, someone allergic to gluten, and someone who's vegetarian (me). So I decided I would try to make tiramisu, and minimize the amount of lactose in it.

The first thing I did was bake a batch of gluten-free spéculoos. I am not used to working with gluten-free flour, and although I was mentally prepared (by Google) for extra stickiness while making the dough, it wasn't anything I could have prepared for without experience. I ended up having to add a lot more flour to make the dough possible to work with, which may have been the reason why the flavor wasn't as prominent as in all my other versions. I used a cleaned tomato concentrate can to cut out the circles, though the shape didn't need to be regular, since it would all collapse after a good coffee soak.

Then the usual soaking in coffee, layering with cream mix (whipped soy cream, ricotta, sugar, and a dash of coffee). I have 12 silicone cupcake molds, and seeing how there were 9 of us to feed, I figured making enough for 2 per person would work best. I used clear glasses and small jars to make up for the lack of recipients, but filled each about the same amount as I filled the cupcake molds.

Then simply the usage of a cut-out template to dust chocolate hearts on top of the tiramisus. I messed up the few first ones, as my template wasn't very good and I had to fix it, so I just covered those completely with chocolate powder.

Isn't this a nice view?

I took a picture of the one with the neatest heart.

And here's one with the heart after the chocolate dissolved a bit.

Egg-free Tiramisu in 8 Steps

Start by gathering the ingredients (makes 8 servings):
- 250 g of ricotta (healthier and cheaper than the traditional mascarpone)
- 1 pack of speculoos cookies
- whipping cream (I used ALPRO soy-based)
- coffee
- sugar
- chocolate powder

Prepare the receptacles you will put your tiramisu in. Mine were 4 short glasses, but you can use ramekins, large oven dishes, verrines, etc.

Step 1: Brew a bowl or cup of coffee and let it cool.

Step 2: In a large bowl whip the cream until the volume increases, then whisk in ricotta until smooth. Add sugar, and a spoonful of coffee if desired.

Step 3: Quickly soak some speculoos cookies in the cooled coffee.

Step 4: Layer it at the bottom of your glass (or other receptacle). Repeat desired number of times (I made 3 layers of cookies each time).

Step 5: Spoon in some of the ricotta mixture. This will form the 2nd layer.

Step 6: Repeat steps 4 and 5 as many times as desired. End with a ricotta layer.

Step 7: Refrigerate overnight, or at least 4 hours until set.
Step 8: Sift on some chocolate powder. You can either cover the whole top with chocolate, or use a template to make a shape.

You can see the layers very well in this half-eaten one:

Cooking spamming~

I've been cooking and baking a lot of late, but never got a chance to post it all up. So this post will be a spam of all I've done lately (dates included)!

March 30, 2013
Chocolate chips and walnut cookie~ Some of the cookies were without chocolate by request. I made a good 100 of them, so that I could share them with a lot of people.

April 1, 2013
Pasta salad~ Macaroni mixed with an avocado-yogurt sauce, topped with minced endives, tomatoes, kidney beans, feta cheese, walnuts, and rucola.

April 2, 2013
Veggie patty~ Made with broccoli, corn, tofu, and a flour-water mix to hold it all together. Coated in breadcrumbs before frying.

April 3, 2013
Apple tart

April 4, 2013
Plateful of snacks... Blood orange, apple, and banana, along with some walnuts and almonds, and some toasted spelt bread with cream cheese.

Had some tortilla wraps for dinner. I made two very frequently eaten dishes in our house: sautéed crumbled tofu and oven-baked zucchini. Put them out with some shredded iceberg lettuce, a can of corn, and a variety of sauces (mayonnaise, honey mustard, and ketchup), and everyone could make their tortilla wraps as they chose to.

Oven-baked zucchini:
Dice or slice your zucchini. Toss with a spoonful of olive oil or oil of choice. If desired, add some Italian seasoning. Bake until desired texture.

Crumbled tofu:
Crumble the tofu in your hands, then drop onto a frying pan with a bit of hot oil. Sauté until colored and dryer. Add some salt or any other seasoning of choice.

April 12, 2013
Cheesecake time! This time, I tried my best to take some progress pictures, but -- as you will be able to tell -- I couldn't snap a shot of each step.

Tiramisu cheesecake
1. Take speculoos cookies, put them in a bag, and crush the bag with a rolling pin until the cookies are crumbs. Add melted butter.

2. Mix until all the crumbs are wet.

3. Press into bottom of a pan covered with a baking sheet. If necessary, use the flat bottom of a glass to help.

4. Next, mix your cheesecake ingredients together. (I would say about 375 g sour cream for 600 g cream chesse)

I flavored this cheesecake with some decaf and a lot of sugar. Also added small pieces of speculoos throughout.

5. Bake.

I used the leftover sour cream as a sweet sour cream topping. Result:

6. Decorate. I have a new decorating syringe, so I tried it out with some whipped cream, and put powdered cocoa on it all.

I made another cheesecake, this one with an almond cookie crust and a vanilla flavor. Topped with whipped cream, caramelized cookie crumbs, sliced almonds, and strawberries.

 And with candles, because it was my birthday cheesecake =D