A taste of Italy

Tiramisu is one of those things that if you are in Italy, you have to get a slice to make your Italian experience complete. It is right up there with the Vatican city and Venice, in my opinion. Here in the United States, tiramisu is readily available in most Italian restaurants. It has quickly become a favorite among American foodies. I would even go so far to judge the quality of an Italian restaurant based on their tiramisu.

You can find hundreds of different recipes out there for this Italian treat. I have used this one recipe for a few years. Through trials and errors, I am proud to say that this is the closest to a real slice of Italian tiramisu that I've tasted. Instead of lady fingers, I use a few layers of sponge cake. Lady fingers are essentially little sponge cakes, sometime coated in sugar. By making my own sponge cake, I can have a lot more control over the sweetness of the cake. Make it too sweet and you won't be able to make it pass two bites.

Note: I prefer sponge cake over angle food cake. They are pretty much siblings in the cake family, very similar. But for this recipe, sponge cake works much better. Angle food cake makes of egg white without the yolk. The beaten egg white is very glossy, making it a little more difficult to soak with coffee. Sponge cake works like.... a sponge.

Sponge cake

4 eggs, separated
3/4 cup sugar
4 Tbsp. cold water
1 Cup cake flour
1 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Brush three 8-inch pans with butter and dust with flour.
Beat egg yolks and sugar together until very light. Add water. Sift together flour and baking powder. Add to batter. Beat egg whites until stiff. Fold into batter. Pour batter into prepared pans.
Bake for 20 minutes or until tooth pick comes out clean. Let cool for a few minutes before taking them out of the pans.

Coffee soak

2 cups coffee
2 Tbsp. Kahlua or rum

Combine and set aside

Mascapone cream

3 tub of mascapone cheese (8 oz each)
3/4 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup sugar

Beat all ingredients together until light. Mascapone is an Italian cream cheese that is a lot lighter than regular creme cheese. It gives tiramisus their distinct creamy flavor.

Soak the sponge cake one layer at a time in the coffee soak. Be careful not to soak too long or your cake layer will disintegrate in the liquid. It takes some practice. A brush will help getting the liquid soaked into the cake.

After soaking a layer of cake, spread some of the mascapone creme on top and sprinkle cocoa powder onto the creme layer. Repeat with the other two layers and make sure to cover the side of the cake with mascapone creme as well. Chill before serving.


This dessert is such an explosion of flavor. The sweet creamy cream is met with the bitter cocoa and nutty coffee flavor, while the liqueur adds a warm note to a well chilled cake. It is simply decadence at the same time add so much charm to your party.