Tiramisu, Tiramiju

The 4 deadly sins of a disappointing tiramisu

Tiramisu is a simple dessert. Like most things italian, it has few ingredients and relies on those ingredients being reasonably good quality.

Why, then, is it so hard to find tiramisu that is good?

So here are my 4 deadly sins of a disappointing tiramisu. For tiramisu lovers, they can be considered a guide for the interrogation of any individual or establishment who has this dish on the menu.

1. Not made with mascarpone, but whipped cream.

Clearly, the dessert must be made with mascarpone. However, many places will substitute whipped cream because it is much cheaper. The fundamental qualities of mascarpone are that it is rich, and slightly sour. The sourness is an essential component of the dessert, because it balances nicely with the other flavours present. This leads on to a related, and more difficult problem, namely that many mascarpones available are simply not sour AT ALL. They taste basically the same as double cream, which means that they should be labelled as such, but they're not.

2. Made with anything but high quality espresso coffee.

Absolutely non-negotiable! Italians perfected the espresso method, which results in the most flavoursome coffee possible. Tiramisu is a showcase for the flavours of the coffee, so it must be high quality. This is expensive and labour intensive, because the dessert needs to be made with short blacks (to use the aussie term for strong espresso coffee), and a lot of them. If each short black is about 50 ml, then you will need about 10 to 15 of them for a smallish tiramisu.

3. Too little coffee, or too much coffee.

There must be balance here, to ensure that the dessert is moist but not soggy. Anyone who has ever made tiramisu knows there is an art to ensuring the correct degree of soaking of the sponge finger biscuits (savoiardi, pronounced SAV-OY-ARRDI) which depends on the temperature and depth of the coffee and the freshness of the biscuits, among other factors.

4. Too much sugar

This idiotic error is so common, and really, so easy to avoid. ANY good dish needs balance, and Tiramisu is no different. Sweetness is just one of the flavours, which include the slight bitterness of the coffee and alcohol, the sourness of the mascarpone (hopefully, see Sin 1 above), and the dash of pungency also coming from the alcohol. Of course, the AROMAS (as distinct from flavours) are also affected by too much sugar, so it just buggers the whole dessert if there is too much sugar.

That's it. Pretty simple really, and now you know what to ask the waiter when he says his tiramisu is "The Best." Now it's up to you to see whether or not he's telling the truth.

There are many other factors which some people may consider important in a tiramisu. These include quality of sponge finger biscuits, type of alcohol and whether or not to use eggs. I will cover these in my next blog, and explain why they're not as important as what is outlined above.

Happy Eating!

Owen