Tiramisu à la Greenville Arms 1889 Inn

Side detailed view of the Tiramisu.

Serves 8 to 10

You can make this tiramisu in individual portions, or as one big dessert in a large rectangular baking dish, like a lasagne dish. At the Hudson River Valley Art Workshops and the Greenville Arms 1889 Inn we use individual glasses.

INGREDIENTS

3 free-range eggs, separated
3¼ oz granulated sugar
1 cup whipping cream
9 oz mascarpone cheese
½ cup Kahlua or other coffee-flavoured liqueur
1 cup espresso coffee - if you don’t have an espresso machine at home, ask your local coffee shop to make you a couple of espressos to go
24 lady finger biscuits (Recipe to follow. We make our own.)
3½ oz dark chocolate (70% cocoa), grated

Method

Put the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl and beat using a cake mixer or electric beaters on moderate speed for about 10 minutes, or until pale and thick. Meanwhile, whip the cream in a separate bowl, being careful not to overbeat it. In another bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

When the egg yolk and sugar are done, add the mascarpone and beat gently with electric beaters until well combined. Remove the bowl from the mixer and, using a spatula, gently fold the whipped cream through and add ¼ cup of the Kahlua, mixing well. Fold the beaten egg white through. Pour the rest of the Kahlua and espresso into a flat dish or your parfait glass. We use juice glasses.

Spread a thin layer of the mascarpone mixture on the bottom of the dish. Dip a lady finger biscuit in the Kahlua and coffee mixture for about 4 seconds per side - you don’t want the biscuit to become soggy nor do you want the ladyfinger to be dry. Place it on top of the mascarpone mixture at one end of the dish. Repeat the process, laying the biscuits side by side until you have a layer covering the bottom of the dish.

Spoon a thick layer of the mascarpone mixture over the biscuits, then sprinkle half the grated chocolate over the top. Repeat the lady finger layer, gently pressing them onto the mixture underneath. Spread the remaining mascarpone mixture over the top and finish by sprinkling the last of the grated chocolate over.

If you are using individual parfait glasses, first put into your parfait class some of the mascarpone mixture and then a well saturated ladyfinger diskette, more marscarpone, another ladyfinger, and finish by topping off the parfait with more of the mascarpone mixture. Sprinkle with the grated chocolate as above.

Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours before serving.

Raspberry Lemon Roulade Recipe

This recipe makes two roulades.

A roulade, that is a rolled sponge cake, is one of the easiest desserts to make. The only ones I can think of that are easier or as easy are éclairs or perhaps a mousse. This recipe is for a lemon curd raspberry roulade. You can use cherry or what I do alot is mix 4 berries together to create a unique recipe. I decorate the outside of the roulade with a raspberry whipped cream, which I love. I would not recommend using a chocolate ganache as that would overpower the delicate filling. But if you're mad about chocolate, why not? Give it a try.

Before we begin, the hardest part of this recipe will be the cutting. The second hardest part will be rolling the roulade and keeping it nice and round.

The first step is to make the roulade sponge. The sponge cake is very similar to a pastry cream with flour. Brush the sponge with simple syrup. You can flavor the simple syrup if you wish.

The next step is to make the Lemon Curd.

Now, coat the sponge cake first with some raspberry jam or puree, depending on taste. I prefer a nice jam. Of course, you can make your own jam or reserve or preserve. I coat the whole sponge with the jam, enough to color the cake. And remember, this will be the inside of the roulade.

Make some whipped cream, using 1 cup of heavy cream and fold that into the lemon curd. Next, take the chilled lemon curd/whipped cream and spread it on the sponge.

What I like to do is to first pick a direction to roll the sponge and then coat the roulade leaving a 1/2 inch on three sides and about 1 1/2 inches in the direction of the roll, that is, at the end. That way, if you roll the roulade too lightly, you'll have some squish room. I like a 1/4 to 1/2 inch on the sides because I'm going to cut this off anyway and it's a little squish room. I like the 1 inch to 1/2 inch on the top so I can fold the center tightly.

Coating the sponge with lemon curd.

Now, gently roll the sponge into as tight a roll as you can manage, trying to make it nice and round. Then wrap the roulade in plastic and freeze. Freezing the roulade will make it easier to cut.

You may serve this dessert either completely thawed, it takes about 1 hour or you may serve it very chill. I like serving it almost frozen.

When you are going to serve the roulade, take it out of the freezer and decorate with whipped cream. I add raspberry liquor to my whipped cream and pipe it on with a decorating tip and then cut immediately. I also have the space and like plating immediately.

Now for the hard part, cutting. When I cut the roulade, I do not slice. I like to gently press down on the roulade and I make sure I dry wipe my blade before each cut so that the shipped cream does not stain the faces of the roulade. I also cut off the edges about 1/8 to 1/4 inch, so that each face is nice and flat.



There you have it. A beautiful dessert.

Nancy's Sticky Rice Recipe

This is Nancy's (Zhao Xiu Zhong) first recipe that is completely hers. The only contribution I made was to tell her to double the sugar for American palates and of course, serving it with maple syrup. Nancy only used 1/8 cup of sugar in her original recipe. Beware, this is not as ridiculously simple as it may first look. It takes some work.

Yield 14 Rice Cakes (Portion is two cakes per person.)
2 Cups Sticky Rice (This is the very short grain rice the Chinese use for desserts.)
1/4 Cup Sunflour Seeds. (We use raw organic.)
1/4 Cup Dried Cranberry (Again we use organic dried.)
1/4 Cup Sugar
Sesame seeds as needed. (We use raw organic.)

First you have to have a steamer.



Get a good one. A metal one. For this application, forget the bamboo steamers. My steamer is old and cheap but it eventually gets the job done. When we need to make a lot of rice cakes, we use my old steamer and it takes about one hour and forty minutes to steam the rice. When we use Nancy's little, new steamer it takes about 20 minutes to get the rice just right.

Almost just right. This is about 1/2 hour away from done.

Put parchment papers in your steamer and poke plenty of holes in it. Then put the rice on top of the parchment and steam. In the meantime, mix together the rest of the ingredients.



When the rice is done, mix together the now cooked and soften sticky rice and the other ingredients.



Fold the rice into the other ingredients. Be gentle.



Then mold in a ring mold. First put the sesame seeds on the bottom of the ring and pack the rice mixture on top. Then sprinkle more sesame on top. Make sure both the top and the bottom is well covered with sesame seeds.





The next step is to pan fry them in a little bit of canola oil until they are golden brown. Don't use too much oil and make sure it is hot before you start frying. Just enough to cover the pan.





Garnish with powder sugar and some fruit. Serve hot.





We also serve our great New York maple syrup with these cakes for those that need a sweeter treat. East meets, well, Yankees. Enjoy this lovely dessert.

Warm Chocolate Foam Recipe with Pictures.

I use stemless martini glasses with hot water rather than ice in the base to keep it warm. They also have these great swizzle sticks that I put a strawberry on.

This recipe is a la minute. To do it, you are almost making a chocolate pastry cream and then you put it as it thickens, right before it boils, into the whipped cream whipper. I like to get it just as it's about to boil or right on the cusp of boiling. I don't want to actually make a thick pastry cream because I'm going to whip it but I want the eggs to set and the corn starch to just start to thicken.

First Pastry Cream:

1 qt cream (or milk but I can't have milk and cream is better.)
8 oz sugar
6 eggs
3 oz corn starch
1 T vanilla
3 oz butter
melted chocolate to taste. I use about 6- 8 oz.

Combine sugar and cream and heat.



Mix some cream into the corn starch to make a slurry.



When the cream is hot, temper the eggs and then combine with the cream and stir. Add the slurry to the cream and heat almost to a boil. Add the vanilla. Stir off the heat. Add butter. Stir until melted.



Then add the chocolate. Notice that I have a very low flame. That's because I didn't want the chocolate to cool down the dessert. Don't do that. That's playing with fire for someone who hasn't done this dessert a hundred times. Rather, add the chocolate fast and get it into the whipper immediately.



Quickly put into the whipper and immediately squirt into a cup. The whipper will be hot so be careful. I use a towel to hold the whipper. Don't forget to shake it after you put in the CO2.

It's light and chocolaty. You can cut this recipe in 1/2 or 1/4 easily.