Tiramisu ( it, tiramisù , from , "pick me up" or "cheer me up")
is a coffee-flavoured
Italian dessert. It is made of
ladyfingers (savoiardi) dipped in coffee, layered with a whipped mixture of eggs, sugar, and
mascarpone cheese
Mascarpone (, , ) is a soft Italian acid-set cream cheese. It is recognized in Italy as a ("traditional agri-food product").
Outside Italy, mascarpone is sometimes mispronounced as "marscapone", even by food professionals.
Production process
...
, flavoured with
cocoa
Cocoa may refer to:
Chocolate
* Chocolate
* ''Theobroma cacao'', the cocoa tree
* Cocoa bean, seed of ''Theobroma cacao''
* Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter and ...
. The recipe has been adapted into many varieties of cakes and other desserts. Its origins are often disputed among Italian regions
Veneto and
Friuli Venezia Giulia.
History
Tiramisu appears to have been invented in the 1960s, but where and when exactly is unclear.
The recipe for tiramisu is not found in cookbooks before the 1960s.
It is also not mentioned in encyclopedias and dictionaries of the 1970s, making its first appearance in print in Italian in 1980, and in English in 1982. It is mentioned in a 1983 cookbook devoted to cooking of the Veneto, and a Canadian tourist guide published in 1971. This suggests that it is a recent invention.
Obituaries for the restaurateur Ado Campeol (1928–2021) reported that it was invented at his restaurant Le Beccherie in
Treviso on 24 December 1969 by his wife Alba di Pillo (1929–2021) and the pastry chef Roberto Linguanotto.
[" Tiramisu", ''LeBeccherie.it'']
Retrieved 2 November 2021[
] The dish was added to its menu in 1972.
[
] Accounts by Carminantonio Iannaccone claim the tiramisu sold at Le Beccherie was made by him in his bakery, created on 24 December 1969.
It has been claimed that tiramisu has
aphrodisiac effects and was concocted by a 19th-century Treviso brothel madam, as the Accademia Del Tiramisù explains, to "solve the problems they may have had with their conjugal duties on their return to their wives".
There is evidence of a "Tiremesù" semi-frozen dessert served by the Vetturino restaurant in Pieris, in the
Friuli Venezia Giulia, since 1938. This may be the name's origin, while the recipe for Tiramisu may have originated as a variation of another layered dessert, ''
Zuppa Inglese''.
Others claim it was created towards the end of the 17th century in
Siena in honour of Grand Duke
Cosimo III.
On 29 July 2017, Tiramisu was entered by the
Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies on the list of traditional Friulian and Giulian agri-food products in the
Friuli Venezia Giulia region. In 2013,
Luca Zaia, governor of Veneto sought
European Union Protected Status certification for the dessert, based on the ingredients used in 1970, so substitute ingredients, such as strawberries, could not be used in a dish called tiramisu.
Original ingredients
Traditional tiramisu contains a short list of ingredients:
ladyfingers (savoiardi), egg yolks, sugar, coffee, mascarpone cheese, and cocoa powder. A common variant involves soaking the savoiardi in alcohol, such as
Marsala wine
Marsala is a fortified wine, dry or sweet, produced in the region surrounding the Italian city of Marsala in Sicily. Marsala first received ''Denominazione di Origine Controllata'' (DOC) status in 1969.
The European Union grants Protected Desi ...
,
amaretto or a coffee-based liqueur, but this is not mentioned in the original recipe.
The original tiramisu made at Le Beccherie was circular in shape.
Variations
The original shape of the cake is round, although the shape of the biscuits also allows the use of a rectangular or square pan. However, it is often assembled in round glasses, which show the various layers, or pyramid. Modern versions can have the addition of whipped cream or whipped egg, or both, combined with mascarpone cream. This makes the dish lighter, thick and foamy. Among the most common alcoholic changes includes the addition of
Marsala wine
Marsala is a fortified wine, dry or sweet, produced in the region surrounding the Italian city of Marsala in Sicily. Marsala first received ''Denominazione di Origine Controllata'' (DOC) status in 1969.
The European Union grants Protected Desi ...
. The cake is usually eaten cold.
Another variation involves the preparation of the cream with eggs heated to sterilize it, but not so much that the eggs scramble.
Over time, replacing some of the ingredients, mainly coffee, there arose numerous variants such as tiramisu with chocolate, amaretto, berry, lemon, strawberry, pineapple, yogurt, banana, raspberry, and coconut. These, however, are not considered true Tiramisu as these variations only share the layered characteristic of Tiramisu; these examples more closely resemble variations of
trifle.
Numerous variations of Tiramisu exist. Some cooks use other cakes or sweet, yeasted breads, such as ''
panettone'', in place of ladyfingers (savoiardi). Bakers living in different Italian regions often debate the use and structural qualities of utilising other types of cookies, such as pavesini for instance, in the recipe. Other cheese mixtures are used as well, some containing raw eggs, and others containing no eggs at all.
Marsala wine
Marsala is a fortified wine, dry or sweet, produced in the region surrounding the Italian city of Marsala in Sicily. Marsala first received ''Denominazione di Origine Controllata'' (DOC) status in 1969.
The European Union grants Protected Desi ...
can be added to the recipe, but other liquors are frequently substituted for it in both the coffee and the cheese mixture, including dark rum,
Madeira
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, image_map=EU-Portugal_with_Madeira_circled.svg
, map_alt=Location of Madeira
, map_caption=Location of Madeira
, subdivision_type=Sovereign st ...
,
port,
brandy
Brandy is a liquor produced by distilling wine. Brandy generally contains 35–60% alcohol by volume (70–120 US proof) and is typically consumed as an after-dinner digestif. Some brandies are aged in wooden casks. Others are coloured with ...
,
Malibu, or
Irish cream and especially coffee-flavoured liqueurs such as
Tia Maria
Tia Maria is a dark coffee liqueur made originally in Jamaica using Jamaican coffee beans, but now made in Italy. The main ingredients are coffee beans, Jamaican rum, vanilla, and sugar, blended to an alcoholic content of 20%.
History
The hi ...
and
Kahlúa.
Amaretto liqueurs, such as
Disaronno, are also often used to enhance the taste of tiramisu.
Tiramisu is similar to other desserts, in particular with the
Charlotte, in some versions composed of a
Bavarian cream surrounded by a crown of ladyfingers and covered by a sweet cream; the Turin cake (''dolce Torino''), consisting of ladyfingers soaked in
rosolio
Rosolio is a type of Italian liqueur made from a base of alcohol, sugar, and water in the same proportion, which is flavored by adding an essence of any of various types.
Despite a common misconception based on the name, rosolio has no direct co ...
and
alchermes with a spread made of butter, egg yolks, sugar, milk, and dark chocolate; and the ''Bavarese Lombarda'', which is a similar composition of ladyfingers and egg yolks (albeit cooked ones). In ''Bavarese'', butter and rosolio (or alchermes) are also used, but not mascarpone cream or coffee.
See also
*
Charlotte
*
Cheesecake
Cheesecake is a sweet dessert consisting of one or more layers. The main, and thickest, layer consists of a mixture of a soft, fresh cheese (typically cottage cheese, cream cheese or ricotta), eggs, and sugar. If there is a bottom layer, it m ...
*
Crema de fruta
*
List of coffee dishes
This is a list of coffee dishes, which includes foods that use coffee as a primary ingredient, and for which coffee is an essential ingredient. Coffee beverages are omitted from this list.
Coffee dishes
* Café liégeois – a cold dessert made ...
*
Opera cake
*
Profiterole
*
Serradura
''Serradura'' (), also known as sawdust pudding or Macau pudding, is a well-known Portuguese dessert, popular in both Portugal and Macau (a former Portuguese colony in China), as well as Goa (a former Portuguese colony in India), with a layered ...
*
Trifle
References
{{Cakes
Coffee dishes
Cuisine of Veneto
Custard desserts
Italian cakes
Italian desserts