It has been approximately 2 years since I last made my favorite and specialty dish – Tiramisu. The main reason why I stopped for such a long time is because it is a very FATTENING dessert. The not-so-slim me tend to avoid it unless I am making it for ah-hem you-know-who (who-is-none-existence haha). Anyway so happened when I went shopping with my mom yesterday in Cold Storage, I saw a variety of Mascorpone cheese. This is a very rare sight (probably common in Cold Storage) as most supermarket don’t offer this cheese as it usually does not have a long shelf life and low demand. Honestly speaking all these while I practiced using cream cheese only as it is a cheaper alternative and I can afford to make mistakesss. Somehow the taste is not quite what I was looking for.

Everywhere I went, locally in Penang, KL, Singapore, US, NZ … I always looked for Tiramisu; I wanted to get the right taste, the variety of inspirations to help me make my perfect Tiramisu! A lot of time, if you go to places like Secret Recipe, their version of tiramisu is in a cake form – to my understand (correct me if I am wrong), the original Tiramisu is not cake-like, it is almost like a mousse-like texture.

Just incase you are wondering, Tiramisu on the contrary believe or the intonation similarity, is not originated from Japan (sounds like Ti-La-Mi-Su, a close cousin to Tsu-Na-Mi or something haha). It is actually an Italian dessert. Back in the First World War, women made this high energy and ‘CAFFEINE’ dessert to provide their husband more energy to fight and come home safely. Now, Tiramisu is a popular after dinner dessert as it contains liquor; symbolically it is a “pick-me-up” or “make-me-happy” … you-know-what-I-mean.

Anyway I guess I need to practice before I lose the art. I bought the REAL cheese and the rest of the ingredients. In this attempt I used raw eggs instead of the usual substitute whip cream. I typically refrain from raw eggs as most people don’t take uncooked eggs and it may make me sick (so they say). Anyhow, because of my quest for the perfect tiramisu … I will give it a try hence I am my own guinea pig.

So what’s the verdict? Voila, it is perfecto, close! The taste is almost right, it was like heaven in my mouth and it melts my heart. The only main flaw was a little soft, I guess I over beat the egg white, and from stiff it became a little watery. Apart from that, what was missing was espresso and coco powder. I still had to substitute the espresso with kopi-O and the coco powder with chocolate powder. Otherwise it is perfect-O.

Now, I am giving my self approximately 10 hours to monitor my stomach condition, if I didn’t get any food poisoning – the dish is ready to serve.

P/S: Some say Tiramisu taste like love, sweet in the beginning (mainly sugar and cheese) but bitter in the end (espresso and liquor). What’s your take?

Read this for the recipe “My no-longer-secret “make-me-happy” recipe“