Eat Dessert First

"Life is uncertain.  Eat dessert first."  - Ernestine Ulmer

 Indeed, life is certainly uncertain. 

So here's a killer tiramisu for those uncertain days that you are in a Nigella mood, although this is not her recipe.  I have used this in many parties and always a hit.

Tiramisu
1/2 cup (4 fl oz) strong espresso coffee
1/2 cup (4 fl oz) coffee liqueur (I used kahlua but tia maria works just as well)
16 sponge finger biscuits (also known as savoiardi), halved widthwise
Cocoa powder for dusting

filling
1 1/4 cups (310g/10 1/2 oz) mascarpone
1 1/2 cups (12 fl oz) (single or pouring) cream
3 tablespoons icing (confectioner's) sugar, sifted

1.  To make the filling, place the mascarpone, cream and icing sugar in a bowl and whisk until light and creamy. Set aside.

2.  Place the coffee and liqueur in a small bowl and stir to combine. Quickly dip both sides of half the biscuit halves in the coffee mixture and place in 4 glasses, layer on the filling, and repeat with the other half of the biscuit halves. 

3.  Spoon over the remaining filling. Dust heavily with cocoa and refrigerate until required. Serves 4.

My notes
1.  Dust the cocoa powder only at the last possible moment.  I noticed that if you do it too early, the powder gets wet from the cream.

2.  You can easily double the quantities to fit into a 24 cm springform cake tin. If you do use one, it may leak from the seams.  So a good alternative would be a wide casserole dish or a normal cake tin.  This way don't have to do it the glasses one by one if you have a large crowd but just serve using a shallow ladle.

3.  After a few trials, you will realise that the amounts of mascapone to cream does not really matter, I just use the commercial packing to approximate my amounts.  Effects are still as great.

Taken with my own notes and some modifications from Donna Hay - Modern Classics 2 Pg 108