DARING BAKER CHALLENGE FEBRUARY, 2010 ~ Heaven on a Dessert Plate!

The February 2010 Daring Bakers' Challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obesession.

Oh boy! Time really does fly when you're having fun, or terribly busy or both! I almost can't believe it's the time of the month when all Daring Bakers rise to the given challenge and post their own versions. February has been very busy and fun and I've been like a whirling dervish trying to cope.

But I wanted so much to make this Tiramisu from scratch. In my excitement, I made the mascarpone cheese way ahead of time and kept it in the fridge. I didn't have any problem with it at all, it was creamy and set after being refrigerated overnight. The recipe for the savoiardi (lady fingers) was also very good and they came out crispy outside and soft inside, just how I wanted. The zabaglione was also fairly easy because this isn't the first time I made it, but I'd have to say, the recipe was really good. The pastry cream set up beautifully too. I just love the recipes given here, they all came out good!

I made two versions of Tiramisu, one version was the "spooned" dessert which I put in ramekins. I made round savoiardi for this--so easy. I decorated the top with cocoa powder and real cacao nibs.
The second version, is my favorite, I lined a 6-inch cake pan with plastic and made about 2 layers of ladyfingers and the mascarpone-zabaglione-pastry cream-whipped cream mixture. I kept it in the fridge overnight. When I lifted it out of the pan, it was a bit soft, so I popped it in the freezer for a few minutes before I sliced it. I decorated the top with cocoa powder, shaved bittersweet couverture chocolate and sliced strawberry.

The sliced Tiramisu cake showing the yummy layers of savoiardi and creamy mixture.

I can say this has got to be one of my favorite challenges so far! The recipes given were fool-proof, and when we took a bite, it was really heaven!

Thank you Aparna and Deeba for this challenge, this one is definitely going to be part of my dessert menu :)

*I have to say that because of the ease of making the mascarpone, I was inspired to start making home-made cheeses.