Tiramisu Cake

How it would be a Friday without cake… I think it could be defined as nonsense, insatiable agony, bad living and an overwhelming emptiness. I don’t even want to imagine it. In fact, I prefer not to try, lest we have a hard time at all. So, once again, we will have a weekend in which we can enjoy a wonderful cake. Today I leave you this Tiramisu Cake very easy to make and with a spectacular result.

Who doesn’t like tiramisu? Okay, I’m sure there’s someone in this crazy world. But I think they are not very reliable… A dessert as spectacular as this and that is not to your liking … Something strange is there.

Tiramisu Cake.

The cake that I leave you today, as you already suppose, is inspired by the traditional Italian dessert “Tiramisu“. This dessert is made with ladyfingers biscuits soaked in coffee syrup, covered with a cream made with mascarpone, yolks and sugar, decorated with cocoa powder. This would be a way to elaborate roughly since there are a lot of recipes to carry it out.

The coffee to soak the biscuits can be accompanied with liquor, aromas… The filling cream can be made by adding meringue, whipped cream… There are many variants and each and every one of them is fabulous.

Tiramisu origin.

According to experts, the tiramisu is a modern dessert, not traditional or classic as you might suppose. There are several legends that want to place the tiramisu at a specific time in history.

First legend.

Searching for mentions or data on this production is found that the oldest dates from the late seventeenth century. This dessert is spoken of as an offering in Siena to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo III de Médici.

The bakers of the city decided to reflect the virtues of the aristocrat in a sweet. They used coffee to represent his force, cocoa as a symbol of virility and mascarpone cheese as humility. All these elements would accompany the rest taking as name “Duke Soup“.

Without a doubt the story is as interesting as it is credible, but if we look at the details, we will realize that it cannot be true.

At that time, using raw eggs in the making of a cream was too complex, unusual, but above all, dangerous. We have to take into account the methods for preserving food that existed at that time and the incompatibility of carrying out a product like this without those methods. On the other hand, finding mascarpone cheese (a perishable product) in such a short time, in Lombardy and considering how far away they were from where this cheese was produced, makes the story lose all credibility.

Second leyend.

It is situated in the 19th century and its creation is attributed to a Turin pastry shop. The Count of Cavour, Camillo Paolo Filippo Giulio Benso, better known simply as Camillo Benso was who achieved the unification of the various states into which Italy was divided. During that process, the bakery offered the candy to help carry out the business in which it had embarked. The reasons that do not make it feasible are the same as in the previous legend added to the fact of offering something “dangerous for your health” as a gift.

Third legend.

This legend is located in the region of Veneto a little over a century and a half ago and, apparently, this sweet saw the light for the first time in a brothel. According to Arturo Filippini, head of the Toulá restaurant, in the 1950s the brothels of the city of Treviso began to offer their customers this sweet from the hands of the madame. It was said to have restorative and even aphrodisiac effects.

The tiramisu was presented to the parishioners promising them that it would “take them up” which, in Venetian dialect, was expressed with “te tira su“. From there it would derive into “ti tira su” in Italian and, as it became popular, it began to be called tiramisu.

An uncertain origin.

In general, when talking about tiramisu, it is a tendency to defend its most romantic and historical origins. But, the reality is that there is no evidence that can situate its origin joined to a history.

• In the Italian magazine Vin Veneto: rivista trimestrale di vino, grappa, gastronomia e varia umanità del Veneto the gourmet Giuseppe Maffioli pointed to the pastry chef Roberto “Loli” Linguanotto, from the Alle Beccherie restaurant in Treviso, as its author in the late 1960s. This professional with experience in Germany, where he worked especially with cakes made from wine, wanted to try his luck making a sweet with local products.
• Celeste Tonon, chef/owner of Ristorante da Celeste and open in Treviso since the 1970s, her mentor, Speranza Garatti, was “the true mother of tiramisu“. Tonon claims that in the early 1960s, Garatti served the dish in a glass, calling it coppa imperiale. After Garatti made the imperial cup dessert, his friend Ado Campeol, restaurateur of Le Beccherie, made a version and changed the name from coppa imperiale to tiramisu. This gave way to a dispute over who had invented it.
• The text Cocina y tradiciones de Veneto, used in catering schools, attributes the origin of this dessert to the restaurant from Treviso and to a chef with experience in Central Europe. The chef himself explains how he created it on his website Tiramesu.it.
• The Washington Post talks about Carminantonio Iannaccone attributing to him the origin of this dessert. According to his version, everything began after training as a pastry chef in the southern city of Avellino and leaving for Milan, at only 12 years old, looking for work. He settled in northern Italy where he formed a family. In 1969 he opened his own restaurant called Piedigrotta in Treviso. He wanted to make something that joined the daily flavors of the region and with the classic coffee, eggs, a little mascarpone, marsala and savoiardis, ladyfingers, he created the tiramisu. He spent two years perfecting the recipe and soon it was a resounding success. It was imitated and even requested by other restaurants to Iannaccone himself. Now, since his retirement back in the United States, he assures that he never thought that his idea would become a classic of Italian gastronomy, much less a cause for dispute over his invention. He assures that 40 years ago in a small town nobody, and even less he, would think of keeping a proof of something he had created.

Carrying out the Tiramisu Cake.

This cake is a version of the traditional tiramisu in which the main ingredients are kept, but it adjusts to my personal tastes when it comes to making it as well as its final presentation.

I wanted to make a not-so-fine sponge cake that imitated the traditional ladyfingers biscuits. My intention was to soak them very well in coffee syrup and liquor. The filling is the traditional cream, or at least one of its versions, of the tiramisu.

And, finally, the decoration is carried out with whipped cream with a touch of coffee and decorated with cocoa powder. The upper part of the cake is based on the presentation of this cheesecake from the web Tables de Sucre.