Tiramisu Cake and Questionable Parenting Practices; TWD

Dorie introduces this cake by saying that in the 1990s, the only way to avoid tiramisu was to go to Antartica. I cannot figure out why anyone would want to avoid tiramisu. Heck, I would probably be willing to travel to Antartica to get it, if that was the only place it was available. Luckily, Dorie makes it available in a layer cake form, with homemade yellow cake instead of storebought ladyfingers. This cake is wonderfully delicious, drenched in espresso syrup and a little amaretto kick. It is the perfect "pick me up".

Traditionally, this is a dessert made with the ladyfingers, mascarpone cheese mixed with some liqueur, espresso, and a dusting of cocoa powder. I didn't have any mascarpone, but had ricotta I needed to use, so I used that. I had read you could use ricotta and to whir it in a food processor to make it smoother. I was rushed, so I skipped that part. I was worried it would make the filling and frosting too grainy, but after sitting in the refrigerator over night, it is very smooth. I knew I would love this recipe at this point:



This cake gets more than just a dusting of chocolate. The layers are filled with chunks of chocolate. I had some of this on hand:



A perfect choice for this cake. Making the cake was fun and simple. I was getting out the ingredients and asked Little E to do some quick math for me to figure out how many grams of cake flour I needed. After telling me the answer was 224, he came to see what I was doing. I was pouring the cake flour onto the scale. Oooops, 225 grams. I pulled a spoon out and got lucky and scooped exactly one gram. So I said to Little E, "If you ever need to eyeball one gram of white powder, this is what it looks like. hee hee." I'm not sure what is wrong with me, that I would make a drug joke to my thirteen year old. He responded, "Well, hopefully I'll be dealing in kilos, not grams, hee hee." So I stopped giggling and made it clear that it is not really funny.

Little E brought home a stray cat two nights ago and we are letting it stay here while we find it a home. It is mentally ill I think, and continuously sucks on your shirt and kneads at you like it is nursing. Constantly. It has kept him awake for the past two nights so he was really dragging this morning. Of course, I offered him a piece of the tiramisu cake for breakfast. He really needed a "pick me up". He was running late, so he grabbed a piece and headed out the door. There goes my teenager, heading to school eating a 'breakfast' not only filled with sugar, but laced with alcohol and espresso as well. At least I did not make any more cocaine jokes.

I would guess this cake has the potential to be addicting though. It is really delicious. This recipe was chosen by Megan, of My Baking Adventures. She has the recipe and great step by step pictures on her blog. It can also be found on pages 266-268 of Baking, From My Home To Yours, by Dorie Greenspan.