Tiramisu (Italian: tiramisù) is an Italiandessert made of ladyfinger pastries (savoiardi) dipped in coffee, layered with a whipped mixture of eggs, sugar, and mascarpone and flavoured with cocoa. The recipe has been adapted into many varieties of cakes and other desserts. Its origin is disputed between the Italian regions of Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. The name comes from the Italian tirami su (lit. ’pick me up’ or ‘cheer me up’).
Traditional tiramisu contains ladyfingers (savoiardi), egg yolks, sugar, coffee, mascarpone, and cocoa powder. A common variant involves soaking the savoiardi in alcohol, such as Marsala wine, amaretto or a coffee-based liqueur. The original tiramisu made at Le Beccherie was circular.
The original shape of the cake is round, although the shape of the biscuits also allows the use of a rectangular or square pan. However, it is often assembled in round glasses, which show the various layers, or pyramids. Modern versions can have the addition of whipped cream or whipped egg whites, or both, combined with mascarpone. This makes the dish lighter, thick and foamy. Among the most common alcoholic changes includes the addition of Marsala wine. The cake is usually eaten cold.
Another variation involves the preparation of the cream with eggs heated to sterilize it, but not so much that the eggs scramble. Over time, replacing some of the ingredients, mainly coffee, there arose numerous variants such as tiramisu with chocolate, amaretto, berry, lemon, strawberry, pineapple, yoghurt, banana, raspberry, and coconut.
Numerous variations of tiramisu exist. Some cooks use other cakes or sweet, yeasted bread, such as panettone, in place of ladyfingers (savoiardi). Bakers living in different Italian regions often debate the use and structural qualities of utilising other types of cookies, such as pavesini for instance, in the recipe. Other cheese mixtures are used as well, some containing raw eggs, and others containing no eggs at all. Marsala wine can be added to the recipe, but other liquors are frequently substituted for it in both the coffee and the cheese mixture, including dark rum, Madeira, port, brandy, Malibu or Irish cream and especially coffee-flavoured liqueurs such as Tia Maria and Kahlúa. Amaretto liqueurs, such as Disaronno, are also often used to enhance the taste of tiramisu.
Tiramisu is similar to other desserts, in particular with the Charlotte, in some versions composed of a Bavarian cream surrounded by a crown of ladyfingers and covered by a sweet cream; the Turin cake (dolce Torino), consisting of ladyfingers soaked in rosolio and alchermes with a spread made of butter, egg yolks, sugar, milk, and dark chocolate; and the bavarese lombarda, which is a similar composition of ladyfingers and egg yolks (albeit cooked ones). In bavarese, butter and rosolio (or alchermes) are also used, but not mascarpone cream or coffee.
