Savoiardi – Red Branch Chronicles

There is something about Easter and chocolate, isn’t there? Cadburys apparently made over 477 million chocolate eggs and probably the same amount of chocolate bunnies and I am sure Lindt and other manufacturers did something similar. In Belgium, the self proclaimed chocolate centre of the world (!), chocolatiers were declared essential workers in an otherwise locked down economy and chocolate bunnies were adorned with white chocolate face masks. Easter alone here in Perth without family, grandchildren and friends for lunch was no excuse for not indulging myself so I decided to treat myself to a slow roasted leg of lamb, creamy mashed potatoes and minted peas followed up by a fancy dessert.

Nearly a quarter of a century before – yes, really that long ago – two of my students were junior chefs from the Italian part of Switzerland and one night during a Sinners and Saints party at my place, they made a tiramisu and scribbled the recipe down which I recently discovered among old papers.

Anyway, for those that don’t know (or care), Tiramisu (Pick me up, in Italian) is a light, coffee flavoured dessert and is as classic an Italian dish as Spaghetti Bol, or Pizza Quattro Staggione or Saltimboca or … whatever.

I had tried the recipe a few months ago when I was having my son and daughter around for a Sunday lunch but it was a complete disaster, everything curdled and the resulting mess was soggy and unappetising. This time would be different, I swore, and the secret? Seperate the egg yolks from the whites and beat each separately! Simple as that!

OK, Ingredients first

5 eggs – all I had left in the fridge as my chickens have taken a break from laying
500g mascarpone ( a light cream cheese, similar to Philadelphia but much nicer)
6 dessertspoons of fine caster sugar
double shot of espresso coffee
l packet of Savoiardi sponge (lady) fingers
a scoop of Nutella
a double shot of Tia Maria coffee liqueur
a bar of dark chocolate, melted
…and a dusting of cocoa powder on top

First off, make the coffee. I made a double espresso and then ‘cooled’ it down by adding a double shot of Tia Maria. Next, separate the eggs, and place the egg whites in one bowl, and the egg yolks in another. I broke each egg into my hand and sort of dribbled the albumen from hand to hand and plonked the yolk into another bowl. I wasn’t able to keep them completely separate as I managed to leak a spot of yolk into the whites making them very difficult to beat, according to what my mother used to say!

Add 3 dessertspoons of sugar, whizzed in the blender to make it extra fine, to the egg white bowl and use an electric beater to whip the egg whites to stiffish peaks. Hopefully, after a couple minutes of whipping, the egg whites will start to thicken, in my case, barely, because of the drop of yolk, but I didn’t want to over whip the whites.

Set the stiff egg whites aside, and switch over to the egg yolk bowl. Add 3 more dessertspoons of sugar to the egg yolks and beat this for a couple minutes, until it goes from bright to a pale yellow.

Mix in the mascarpone and the Nutella (I used all that was left in the jar, but use as much as you want, and then mix thoroughly with the electric beater again before gently folding in the stiff egg whites, as slowly as possible.

Place the espresso and the Tia Maria (use any spirit your like – Sambuca, rum, brandy or nothing at all) in a small bowl, and then dunk each of the sponge fingers in the coffee and booze mixture for literally a second or two or the biscuits can become too soggy, (I like to see a dry core inside the finger when I break it in two), and lay a layer of them in the serving dish. Then pour a layer of the mascarpone mixture to cover them. Lay another layer of biscuits on top of that and cover again with the mascarpone. I threw the broken bits of dark chocolate into a small bowl in the microwave to melt and then dribbled the melted choc over the creamy mixture before adding a finely sieved spoonful of raw cacao powder over the lot. Bang it into the fridge and leave it for a few hours to sets as this lets the layers soak into each other and allows the mascarpone cheese and everything else firm up.