The King of Desserts

A while ago I had written about cheesecake and how it held the honor of being the queen of desserts in my opinion. I also mentioned that there was one single dessert that rated higher and this is the topic of my post today. I delayed this a while, as I've been on a quest to make the dessert at home; from scratch; and as good as my memory of it. After scouring the web for recipes, and having a disaster on my first try (I whipped the mascarpone with so much gusto, it broke and I was left staring at the end product- which resembled scrambled eggs - immensely baffled, and scratching my head as to what had gone wrong - I followed the recipe didn't I?)

A bit of research the very next day gave me the answer - Don't whip mascarpone - just beat it very slightly - just enough to make it smooth and creamy and STOP as soon as you get there! Eating the scrambled egg-like end product for the next few days drilled a lesson deep down into my brain - a lesson I shall not forget till my dying day - Don't whip mascarpone!

With all this talk of mascarpone, I'm sure most of you might have guessed I'm talking about the invention of the Italians that the world is most grateful for - the dessert that makes cares and worries fade away, the dessert that makes you feel like you're riding a soft, fluffy, cloud while bathing in dark chocolate and strong coffee - the loved-by-all Tiramisu.

A lovely friend of mine kindly gave me a tried and tested tiramisu recipe (saved me a good 6 months in googling and trying countless variations of recipes - the web isn't kind to newbies) and thanks to it, I was able to enjoy my first tiramisu-making success. The major difference with this recipe is that it used cream instead of egg whites to build the fluffy softness that we all associate with tiramisu. Moral - Always use cream instead of egg whites - it's worth the extra calories!

The first thing the recipe called for was beating egg yolks and sugar over a double broiler. That seemingly simple step went wrong in so many ways, I started losing hope over this attempt too. First up, I was either overly tired or brain-dead as I was separating the egg whites from the yolks - 3 out of 5 whites went into the wrong bowl and we spent a good amount of time separating the 'separated' whites and yolks...sigh! The last two were saved only because I gave up and handed the eggs to my non-brain-dead friend who so kindly saved me from myself and took over! Phew! Finally we had the required 5 egg yolks and we got to setting up a makeshift double broiler with a saucepan and a glass bowl. All was well, till I managed to make the bowl slip and got about a tablespoon of water into the mix. All our efforts to separate the water went in vain and we had to concede defeat and hope that a tablespoon of water wouldn't do too much harm.

On to the next step - whipping cream!

I'm usually a believer in hand-whipping, but it was a late night after work and grocery shopping and my arms weren't in a very forgiving mood, so out came the old electric beater from its box in the corner. All went well, push of a button and off went the cream slowly thickening in its bowl when suddenly the possessed beater decided it wanted to stop working! The very thought of picking up my faithful whip shot pain through my arms as I looked on (and hit and shook and pushed) at the old beater...

There came super-mum to the rescue and she whispered away in her beater's ears till he decided he would forgive me (for whatever I had done to hurt his feelings) and start working again. There was the day saved by mum again!

Voila - cream whipped into submission, eggs and sugar mixed in with the creamy mascarpone - that didn't break this time! Folded the cheese and eggs into the cream, layered the mix with sponge biscuits soaked with coffee and brandy and showered cocoa powder on top and we were done!

It went off into the fridge to sit overnight and the cooks went off to bed dreaming of all the possible disasters this could turn into.

Next evening, out came the experiment, cut and placed delicately on dessert saucers and finally we got a chance to put a spoon of it in our mouths. Smooth and creamy with the sponge biscuits soaking up the wonderfully intensely strong coffee and brandy mixture and finally the cocoa on top just adding the perfect amount of chocolate to the taste mix left everyone sitting back in their chairs with their eyes closed, savoring every beautiful second. When we recovered, we breathed a sigh of relief (and a sigh of contentment too) as we thought back to the disasters of the night before and realized that disasters in the kitchen aren't all that bad after all!

At least we have a story to tell :)

The pictures don't do it justice really - the lighting wasn't great, I was working with a camera phone and I had to rush the photos a little - but I'm putting them up anyway!

Till next time folks!