PRETTY LITTLE THINGS

The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.
As usual when Italian dishes are part of the challenge, I'm (too much) critical .... after all, Tiramisu is THE Italian Dessert, and in Rome I've been living across the street from Pompi, a pasticceria/bar that claim to have the best tiramisu in Rome, and they're probably right. They've got the classic one, the one with Nutella and banana, and in summer the one with fresh stawberries (without coffe). But for the challenge I went the straight way, following the given recipe in detail. Let's take a look at the tiramisu parts:
- Mascarpone from scratch - I think that's the best part of the challenge. I've never made mascarpone from scratch, and I could't stop liking the spoon, testing whether it's firmed up ... which it did nicely. I'm only sorry that I didn't have any remains to eat plain ...
- Zabaglione from scratch - definetely tasty. I used espresso to flavour it, but next time I'll surely try Marsala wine.
- Pastry cream, from scratch, obviously - nice, but for my taste too swett, and has got nothing to search inside a tiramisu. Sorry.
- Savoiardi from scratch - really good. Different from storebought in more than one way, I enjoyed the fact that I could made the shape just as I fancied. I planned on serving individual portions, so I piped the batter circle-shaped to fit the individual serving glasses.
- Whipped cream .... nothing to search inside tiramisu, again. Sorry, I know I'm annoying ...

The result - following the recipes in detail I used all the required ingredients, including pastry cream and whipped cream. It was very good, but I think I'll scip both of them the nect time. And there will be a next time, for sure!