Recipe: Chocolate Tiramisu

It has become a family tradition that every Friday, my family come over for dinner.  Either my fiancé and I cook something nice, and this week Jonathan made dinner (fajitas) and I made dessert (chocolate tiramisu!).  This was my first time making this and it was a success although be warned, it is VERY rich!  Also please note that this is different than traditional tiramisu which is made with coffee and/or alcohol.  This has neither in it, as it's more of a children's recipe so it's made with chocolate instead.

You Will Need:

Semi-skimmed milk

Fresh cream

Caster sugar

Drinking chocolate

Mascarpone

Vanilla essence

Savoiardi biscuits (lady fingers)

Chocolate flakes

To serve: 6 glass bowls

Measure out 9 tablespoons of drinking chocolate into a medium saucepan.

Add to that 450ml semi skimmed milk.

Stir this over a medium heat until the chocolate has dissolved.

When this is done, leave aside to cool.

Measure about 450ml of fresh cream.

Whip cream till peaks form.

Add to this 325g of mascarpone cheese.

Also add 4 and a half tablespoons of caster sugar and 1 and a half teaspoons of vanilla essence.

Whisk for a further 10 seconds until everything is well combined.

Soak two Savoiardi biscuits in the chocolate milk (which should be warm/lukewarm at this stage) for about 5-10 seconds.

Break them up and make sure they completely cover the base of the glass bowl.  Continue doing this, placing two biscuits per bowl.

Spoon out half the cream/mascarpone mixture distributing equally into the six bowls.

Repeat the biscuit soaking, this time using three biscuits per bowl and arrange them on top of the cream.

Layer on the remaining cream/mascarpone mixture onto each bowl.

Break up and sprinkle the chocolate flakes on top of the desserts (I only used half a flake bar!) and refrigerate for one hour before serving.  Enjoy!

And the verdict?  These definitely went down a treat, especially with my fiancé, who is a chocolate fiend!  However like I said, they're very rich and not easy to finish!  The recipe is also quite different to the one I'm used to, which my mom makes with coffee and without cream.  The cream makes it quite heavy.  I think the next time I make this, I will serve it in a large casserole dish (how my mom does hers), that way people can pick their portion sizes, as I thought these portions were pretty big and hardly anyone was able to finish them.  Other than that, it was a big success and I recommend this recipe to anyone who wants to try a different version of tiramisu!  

I took this from the book, Buonissimo! by Gino D'Acampo but changed the quantities from 4 people to 6.  Let me know if you try this recipe or if it's something you think you'd be interested in trying and if you do, tell me how you liked it!

xoxo