Tag: tiramisu

Posted on

Wet Sponge Cake

One of the things I quite like about Lidl and Aldi are their themed weeks, where they have limited stocks of different kinds of products based around a theme, usually a country such as France or Italy.

Recently, Aldi did an Italian themed week, I picked up some pasta, but also what was a Tiramisu dessert which was described (or translated) as Coffee-Wet Sponge Cake with Mascarpone Cream.

This did amuse me, but also got me thinking about who does this kind of translation, in this instance at the Balconi factory in Italy. Do they not check with a native (or at least a fluent) English speaker about the translation?

You sometimes get weird translations with Chinese, Korean or even Japanese products, but usually with European products, the translation is more accurate. 

So anyone for a slice of wet sponge cake?

Actually I quite liked it.

Posted on

Incomplete Tiramisu

I was out for a meal at Bella Italia and I had a dessert, Tiramisu.

An italian classic! Espresso & Marsala soaked sponge layered with sweet mascarpone cream and finished with Amaretti biscuit crumb and a dusting of cocoa powder. 

Tiramisu

Yes, I also did wonder where the Amaretti biscuit crumb was too!

One of the issues I find sometimes in places, is you read the menu, order the dish, the menu is taken away and then you receive your dish. You feel something is not right. You then later review the menu, and in this instance you realise that the Amaretti biscuit crumb was missing. It also did not look like what was on the online menu.

I have found that this sometimes happens too often. It has happened before at Bella Italia up in Leeds with a mushroom dish I ordered, then I did complain.

I was a little disappointed with the look of the dish. The photograph doesn’t really show how sunken the Tiramisu was. It did look like it had been in the fridge for a long time!

As a Tiramisu it was okay. I think there needed to be a stronger espresso and Marsala flavour in there. The missing biscuit crumb would have added some much needed texture.

I had this as part of a set menu (so about £3.50) but this was not worth the price of £5.99.

I don’t think I would be ordering this again in the future.

Posted on

Tiramisu Recipe

This is my recipe, there are no exact quantities as I don’t use them…

Get some amaretti biscuits, you can use sponge fingers if you prefer.

Make up some espresso coffee, using decent espresso coffee. Add some Amaretto spirit. For those that avoid spirits, then just using coffee will be fine.

Dunk the amaretti into the coffee/Amaretto mix, and place into small bowls (or one big bowl).

Mix (say) three egg yolks with some caster sugar (say 3 oz), mix in a tub of Mascarpone cheese.

Spoon the mixture onto the biscuits.

Now you could do a layer of biscuits, a layer of the Mascarpone mixture, but it depends more on what you are serving them in.

Leave in the fridge to set.

Once set, dust with cocoa.

Serve.

Links

Disaronno Amaretto