A tiramisu school for foreigners (basic course) and for Italians. Here are the valuable tips that the pastry chef Giacinta Trivero of Tiramibloom gave us. Follow them, and your favorite dessert will be perfect!
Eggs, sugar, mascarpone, coffee, ladyfingers: an extremely simple recipe, but traps are not lacking. How many times did it happen that the cream did not firm up properly or that the Savoyard was not wet enough? To resolve any uncertainty, we tried to prepare the tiramisu in one of the masterclasses of Giacinta Trivero, a young Italian chef trained in France by Paul Bocuse, who recently opened his tiramisu boutique, with an annexed single-cuisine school. Two courses: for Italians and foreigners. "For the latter," says the pastry chef, "we start from the basics, teaching them even to make coffee. For the Italians, who naturally already have a certain familiarity, let us give the tips to never make mistakes and some ideas to vary the recipe . Here, precisely, what are the recommendations of Giacinta Trivero?
Prepare the ingredients according to the temperature
In pastry, order and discipline are fundamental. First you need to decide whether to use biscuits or, as they do from Tiramibloom, a kind of sparse little sponge cake. And even if you used the ladyfingers ("the good ones, please!" Says Giacinta), you will still have to take care of the base well enough to allow it to cool down. Ditto for coffee or any other wet that you plan to use in the event of a change: because they are always hot liquids that need time for cooling.
Not a drop of yolk in the egg whites
Everyone knows that whites must be whipped until they are stiff, but that this process is made more difficult by a possible contamination of red in whites is less known or, at least, is often ignored because of haste. But in the kitchen, and especially in pastry, you don't have to hurry.
Sugar in reds little by little
The reds, for their part, must be mixed with sugar, after having turned them vigorously with a whisk. Red must literally change color, becoming yellow. But to do this in the best way, it is useful to always remember to pour the sugar in the yolks little by little, turning quickly. In large quantities, sugar tends to "cook" the yolks. Ditto the mascarpone, it must be inserted little by little, but in this case to check that the cream does not make lumps.
After mounting reds and whites, whisk away
If in the first phase reds and egg whites need the energetic contribution of whips, in the second phase we must change the instrument. Both when adding the mascarpone to the reds and, even more, when it is the turn of the egg whites to enter the mixture, the operation must be performed with a spatula and not with a whisk. In the case of mascarpone because with the spatula it is better combined with reds and helps to avoid lumps, in the case of egg whites instead it is the moment when the cream imposes delicacy. Pour the egg whites in 2-3 moments and make movements from the top to the bottom, to incorporate the whipped whites without removing them.
Don't be afraid of wetting the base too much
For Giacinta Trivero the better the Savoyard is soaked, and to be absolutely certain of the result she suggests using a transparent container, so as to be able to check that the bottom is also wet. With coffee it is easy to tell if everything is evenly wet, with less transparent bagne. In that case, you have to do the "finger" test, if it sinks slightly and the Savoyard gives in means that it is well wet.
Green light for the imagination: but always try!
The classic tiramisu has its own granitic recipe (don't add the cream, for example), but it is not certain that you cannot think of variations on the theme. In the masterclass, Giacinta Trivero proposed a late-summer tiramisu, with the last September figs. With the fig leaves he prepared the syrup by boiling the chopped leaves (two in a liter of water with 50g of sugar) and letting the liquid cool. For the cream, he used the classic recipe for 12 ladyfingers, with 500g of mascarpone, 2 eggs, 100g of sugar, but he added at the end a couple of spoonfuls of fig jam and 10 chopped walnuts. To garnish, instead of the classic cocoa sprinkling, a few more walnuts and slices of fresh fig. The same pattern can be used for all types of fruit: a consistent wet, a few spoonfuls of jam, dried fruit to give crispness and fresh to decorate. «However, Giacinta suggests, «always do the tests before subjecting the experiments to your guests.
Service and storage times
Even if the gluttony wears you down, don't rush, because you have to give the cream time to firmly firm up in the fridge. It takes at least three hours, even better if you prepare it in the morning for dinner or the day before for lunch the next day. Obviously, the opposite rule also applies, although it is difficult to have these problems: do not sip it, because the eggs are raw and should be consumed as soon as possible, of course the tiramisu not consumed must always be in the refrigerator.
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