Tiramisu – an aphrodisiac pick-me-up
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There’s some fierce competition laying claim to the invention of Tiramisu – one of Italy’s most famous desserts. This amazingly sweet and delicious dish has spread throughout Italy and finds itself on the menus of restaurants in every corner of the world – whether they’re Italian or not!
The Origins of Tiramisu
The origins of Tiramisu seem to be fairly shared between the regions of Tuscanny and the Veneto (though there are plenty of competing claims including Piedmont and Lombardy). Let’s take the most common and widely accepted story.
The first steps in creating the dessert occured in Siena, in Toscanny towards the end of the XVII Century. The town, famous for its pastry cooks, prepared an innovative dessert for a feast to celebrate the visit of Cosimo III, the Grand Duke of Tuscanny. Cosimo had, as befitted a Grand Duke of the time, a large appetite and sweet tooth, and was well impressed with the dessert created in his honour (and called ‘zuppa del duco’ or the duke’s soup – doesn’t quite have the mystique of tiramisu about it, does it?). He was so impressed that he brought it back to the Florentine court.
The next step in the dessert’s history was its move north-eastwards to the Veneto region, which was about as wealthy and as debauched a place as you’d wish to go during the mid 18th Century – for example, it was in Venice in the 1740s that Giacomo Casanova made his reputation. The rich dessert was commonplace in Venice, and according to popular legend was eaten by both courtesans and clients as an aphrodisiac/energy booster to sustain them. From here we have the ambiguous and slightly risque title Tiramisu, or ‘pull me up’.
This is the widely credited version of the origins, but it has one major flaw, and that is that one of the main ingredients of the dessert is mascarpone, which comes primarily from the Lombardy region.
There is an alternative theory that suggests that the dessert was actually invented in the 1960s in a restaurant in Treviso, from where it spread throughout the world – though it sounds somewhat improbable to me.
Ingredients to make Tiramisu
6 eggs
10 spoons of sugar
500 grms. mascarpone
10 small cups of bitter espesso coffee
250 grms. savoiardi, or other sponge biscuits
1 bar of dark chocolate,
cocoa powder to garnish
How to prepare Tiramisu:
Separate your egg yolks and whites, and then whisk the egg whites until they’re light and fluffy – then put them aside in the fridge. Beat the yolks in a mixing bowl, making sure that no lumps remain, and then add your mascarpone and sugar and mix. As your mixing the mascarpone in, also start adding gradually your egg-whites, until all is mixed together into a smooth but firm consistency.
Now, take your coffee and put it in a dish that will allow you to, one at a time, dip the biscuits thoroughly. Add the Marsala wine into the same dish. Soak your biscuits in the coffee, and then lay them in a deep flat-bottomed dish creating a layer. On top of this layer add a layer of your mascarpone mix, and grate a healthy amount of your dark chocolate – then start all over again, until you finish with a layer of mascarpone mix on top. Sprinkle remaining chocolate and cocoa powder, and then put in the fridge for a couple of hours.
To Drink
Try a Zibbibo
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Tags: chocolate, coffee, food history, marsala, mascarpone, siena, treviso, venice, zibbibo
