Deep Dish Tiramisu:

Equipment:

• Standard baking sheet sized 40cm (l) x 30cm (w), lined with parchment paper.
• Squared serving dish sized: 20cm x 20cm x 6cm (h)

Recipe:

For the Sponge Cake: multiply my vanilla genoise recipe times 1.33, and follow the preparation method.

For a Gluten Free version, follow the recipe here, and also multiply the recipe by 1.33.

Pour the cake batter to a baking sheet (size mentioned above), and bake in a pre-heated oven set to 180C, fan mode off, placing a baking rack at the lowest shelf inside the oven, for 12 minutes.

As soon as the cake is done baking, release from the pan, peel off the parchment paper, and let the cake cool down on a cooling rack.

For the coffee pastry cream (150g):

For the Tiramisu Cream:

For the coffee syrup:

Cake preparation and assembly instructions:

For the pastry cream:

1. In a small bowl, whisk together 25g of the milk and cornstarch, until smooth and without any lumps. Add the eggs and whisk thoroughly to combine.
2. Into a small saucepan, and the 75g of Milk and sugar, and cook on medium heat until the sugar is dissolved and the milk simmers.
3. Gradually temper the eggs mixture with the hot milk by constantly whisking it to avoid cooking the eggs.
4. Pour the eggs mixture back into the saucepan through a fine strainer to get rid of any unwanted cooked egg bits.
5. Cook on medium heat whisking constantly making sure to scrape the sides of your pan, until you see large and thick bubbles rising to the surface. This should take 2-3 minutes. As soon as you see the bubbles, cook for some 1-2 more minutes.
6. Remove from heat and add in the butter and vanilla. Whisk them well to combine.
7. Transfer the batter to a clean bowl and cover it with plastic wrap that touches the surface of the custard to prevent a skin forming. Cool down to room temperature, before transferring to the refrigerator for at least 4 hours (you can make this cream one day in advanced).

Pro Tip: When you need to cool down a pastry cream fast, you can wrap a tray with plastic wrap, and pour the cream in an even layer on top of the plastic wrap. Adhere a large piece of plastic wrap to the cream and make sure it is sealed well from all sides. Transfer the tray to the refrigerator and it should be cooled down in less than one hour.

For the coffee syrup:

Mix all of the ingredients together (except for the liquor) until the sugar is fully dissolved. Set to the side until the mixture cooled down to room temperature. Then add the liquor.

For the Tiramisu Cream:

1. In a large bowl, soften the mascarpone cheese using a rubber spatula.
2. Gradually add about 1-2 tbsps of the pastry cream to the mascarpone, and fold them together until fully combined. Note that the cream should not curdle.
3. Beat the heavy cream and sugar together to very stiff peaks, and fold it in 3-4 additions into the mascarpone mixture. Refrigerate until use.

Assembly:

1. Cut the cake sheet in half, and arrange one piece inside the pan. You can of course trim it so that it fits to the pan size you have at home.
2. The cake is soaked with half the amount of syrup.
3. Evenly spread half the amount of Tiramisu Cream on top of the cake.
4. Repeat steps 1-3 above once more with the rest of the cake, syrup and cream.
5. Dust the top with Dutch processed cocoa powder, and store refrigerated for up to 3 days (I like to first dust non-melting powdered sugar before I dust the cocoa powder, because it helps create a separating layer that prevents the cocoa powder from absorbing the liquids in the cream, which actually makes it darker).