'Make Me Happy'

Two weeks ago, I got up out of bed and slowly moseyed on down the stairs. When I got to the kitchen and saw the pink and blue balloons swaying back and forth, I remembered it was my birthday. Very excited, I ran to go give my mother and father a hug as they softly shouted, “Happy birthday!” Anyways, every birthday my mother asks me what I want for my birthday cake. This year, instead of asking for the usual vanilla Betty Crocker cake with homemade icing, I asked her to make me tiramisu, an Italian cake-like dessert. I made it clear that I wanted it to be homemade and not store-bought, since store bought didn’t taste as fresh to me. At first she looked at me funny, and then said, “As you wish, darling.” I happily went off to school, eager to get home and have birthday cake.

I asked for this kind of cake for my birthday since it is one of my favorite desserts ever. You may be wondering what tiramisu means. In Italian, it means 'pick me up' which metaphorically means 'make me happy'. It is mostly creamy and has a taste of coffee in it. The cream is wonderfully sweet and not too thick or heavy, but is made with the perfect amount of fluffiness to it. The other main component of tiramisu is the ladyfingers, which are strips of puffy bread-like yet sweet sponge cake. The coffee flavor comes from actual coffee being poured into the dessert. The entire cake is a variety of textures that go from soft and creamy to something feeling like a wet sponge, but in an appealing kind of way. The part of the tiramisu that makes it look so appealing is not just the layering of the cream and sponge cake, but it is also the dashes of chocolate powder lightly sprinkled onto the top layer of the cake. This factor leads you to think that it could be a chocolate cake. However, when you bite into it, the surprise of it being a rich creamy flavor gives you the motivation to continue eating since there may be more surprises in store. Also, instead of just doing an ordinary sprinkle of chocolate powder all over, you could make a pretty design out of the powder using all different shapes and sizes of stencils. This is what my mother did to create a tiramisu with designs of hearts, circles, and swirls from the chocolate powder. It looked amazing and tasted even better!

If you do decide to make tiramisu, though it seems difficult, it is actually very simple. There is no cooking or baking required. After making tiramisu, recipes usually call for it to sit for about three or four hours, but from experience, I have learned that it actually tastes better if you wait a day after. Even though this recipe is simple, people still manage to mess it up or are just too lazy to make it. I know I said earlier that I don’t enjoy store bought tiramisu as much as home made, but if you must, the best store bought tiramisu comes from Whole Foods.

For all those creative people, here is the best recipe my mom and I use to make tiramisu from the Betty Crocker's Cooking Basics. Enjoy!

Tiramisu

Makes 9 servings- Refrigerate: 4 hours

Ingredients

Essential Equipment: electric mixer or hand beater; 8-inch square pan or 9-inch round pan

1 cup whipping (heavy) cream, 1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese at room temperature, 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons light rum or 1/2 teaspoon rum extract, 1 package (3 ounces) ladyfingers (12 ladyfingers), 1/2 cup cold prepared espresso or strong coffee, 2 teaspoons baking cocoa

Directions

1. Pour the whipping cream into a medium bowl, and place in the refrigerator to chill. The cream will whip better in a cold bowl.

2. Beat the cream cheese and powdered sugar in another medium bowl with the electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Beat in the rum on low speed, and set aside.

3. Beat the whipping cream on high speed until stiff peaks form. Gently spoon the whipped cream onto the cream cheese mixture. To fold together, use a rubber spatula to cut down vertically through the mixtures, then slide the spatula across the bottom of the bowl and up the side, turning the mixtures over. Rotate the bowl one-fourth turn, and repeat this down-across-up motion. Continue mixing in this way just until ingredients are blended.

4. Split each ladyfinger horizontally in half. Arrange half of them, cut sides up, over the bottom of the ungreased pan. Drizzle 1/4 cup of the cold espresso over the lady fingers. Spread half of the cream cheese mixture over ladyfingers.

5. Arrange the remaining ladyfingers, cut sides up, over the cream cheese mixture. Drizzle with the remaining 1/4 cup cold espresso, and spread with the remaining cream cheese mixture.

6. Sprinkle the cocoa over the top of the dessert. If you have a small strainer, place the cocoa in the strainer and shake it over the dessert. Otherwise, shake the cocoa from a spoon. Cover and refrigerate about 4 hours or until the filling is firm.

1 Serving: Calories 240 (Calories from Fat 160); Fat 18g (Saturated 11g); Cholesterol 60mg; Sodium 115mg; Carbohydrate 17g (Dietary Fiber 0g); Protein 3g

Lighter

Tiramisu: For 8 grams of fat and 165 calories per serving, use reduced-fat cream cheese (Neufchatel) instead of regular cream cheese. Use 2 cups frozen (thawed) reduced-fat whipped topping for the whipping cream.

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