One of my favourite parts of the festive period in the Alimohamadi household is doing all the food prep on Christmas Eve. In between glasses of mulled wine and mince pies, my mum showed me how to make her secret Raspberry Tiramisu.
This dessert has been tried and tested over the years on family member and friends and every time it gets a rapturous response. The best thing of all is that it’s so easy to make and doesn’t involve any baking or faffing with too many ingredients, which is surely a godsend when you’ve got to fire up a turkey and not burn the Yorkshire puds.
The mother is very precise with her measurements, while I’m more of a free-spirited cook, so I’ll try and stick to the proper way of doing things.
So, to make a tiramisu this delicious, you’ll need:
A medium glass dish
One pack of sponge fingers
2 shots of espresso
4 tablespoons of Disaronno Amaretto
A punnet of organic raspberries (fresh or frozen)
600ml Double cream
500ml Mascarpone cheese
A few drops of vanilla essence
2 squares of good quality dark chocolate
Serves 6-8
First up, line the dish with sponge fingers, up to the edges. Mix the espresso or concentrated ground cafetiere coffee with the amaretto liqueur and drizzle it lightly over the sponge fingers. Then scatter a third of the raspberries on top.
Add the double cream to a mixing bowl and whisk with an electric hand mixer until is starts to become thick. Then add the mascarpone cheese and vanilla essence and blend it on full power for about one minute.
Be careful not to over-whisk the cream, as it will be impossible to spread and even worse, could turn into butter! You’ll know it’s at the right consistency when you seen ‘soft peaks’ and it looks kind of like mountain snow.
Add a layer of cream mixture on top of the sponge and raspberries, spreading it to the edges with a spatula. Repeat the first step again, but this time soak the sponges in the coffee rather than drizzling it, add some raspberries and more cream.
Finally, throw some raspberries on top, finely grate the dark chocolate and sprinkle it on. Cover and keep refrigerated before serving.
Et voila! A quick, decadent but light dessert that knocks points off a boring old trifle. I tried to go for a Good Food magazine-style shot, but I didn’t have a food stylist to plump up the raspberries, so you’ll have to take my word for how delicious it is.
Sorry if this comes too late for you to change your Christmas dessert plans, but it will make a mean Boxing Day/New Year treat.