At the end of last year work was still new and a bit overwhelming. Coupling that with the exhaustion of weeks of insomnia all I could really manage after work was drinking too much Cava in bed and watching Nigella Kitchen on iPlayer until I fell asleep.
I love Nigella Lawson so in many ways that was pretty fantastic. I know lots of people can’t stand her flirting, the way she makes eyes at the camera or how she tries to sex up cooking but that is, of course, why she’s known as the Queen of food porn. I think it’s a wonderful skill: I can’t think of anyone else who makes squeezing the meat out of sausage skins look anything more than vommy.
I’ve never watched, say, Jamie Oliver and his massive tongue and actually wanted to cook anything he’s made and I think that’s the beauty of Nigella Kitchen. Everything looks quite do-able – it’s easy to imagine planning a whole dinner party off the back of it.
After a week that including crashing a Bear Grylls photoshoot - which in turn saw me standing in a dark Harlsden car park, in the snow, ripping bits off bushes for him to whittle - and running around London with two large outdoorsy knives in my handbag (long story) I was ready to waste yet another weekend sleeping until three and spacing out in front of episodes of Friends I’d seen five times before. Thankfully though my cousin Simon was over from Zurich for Christmas and was popping in for lunch, which meant I had to actually get up off my arse and act like a real person.
Obviously this was the perfect chance to test out Nigella’s Frangelico tiramisu. Apart from the fact that Waitrose had run out of Frangelico and the recipe wasn’t on the BBC Food website.
Another hurdle was the fact that I don’t actually like tiramisu. I find it too rich, too coffee-y and just generally a bit blurh. But it just looked so fun to make! All that whizzing! All those creamy bits! And sometimes you just have to suck it up, look life in the face and say “Hey. Hey, this isn’t for me. This is for other people.” Or something.*
So I stuck my laptop on the kitchen counter, swapped Frangelico for Kahlua took a deep breath and watched Nigella all over again and cooked along.
I guessed most of the measurements here which is why this list of what you need may seem a bit vague:
Mascarpone
Sponge fingers
Instant espresso powder (not instant coffee)
Frangelico/Kahlua
2 eggs
75g of caster sugar
Cocoa powder
Chopped, roasted hazelnuts
Into a jug pour 250ml of whatever liqueur your using and top up with 250ml of boiling water straight from the kettle.
Handy little trick from Mummy Duggers here: to stop glass or plastic cracking when you add hot water stick a big metal spoon in first. I have absolutely no idea how or why this works but it does seem to.
Into this you dunk the espresso powder. I’m not a huge fan of coffee but this stuff smells amazing and looks much nicer than general instant coffee. The Nigella Kitchen recipe uses 15g, apparently eight teaspoons, but as a scaredy cat I only used six. I think this made the end result a lot lighter and (obviously) not as strong on the coffee front, which I saw as a bonus.
While that cools get cracking (ha!) with the eggs. Get two nice big bowls and separate the eggs, putting the yolks in the bigger one. Both times I’ve made this I’ve managed to put the whites in the wrong bowl on whisking-autopilot.
With an electric whisk get the whites all foamy and pillowy – but not stiff.
Add the caster sugar to the egg yolks and a good slosh of some more liqueur and then whisk that all together until it’s a lovely creamy colour.
The big trouble I had with doing this off a video and not an actual, written recipe is that how much mascarpone you need is never mentioned. So doing what I always do I over-bought. With 750g at my disposal I worked out you need around 500g.
Add this to the creamy, boozy, eggy, sugar mix dollop by dollop, whisking it in.
Now gently fold in the egg whites. Whenever I’ve left them sitting for a bit I always give them another quick whisk as the liquid that settles at the bottom otherwise grosses me out.
In a deep dish start making a little floor of sponge fingers. While these are called sponge they’re actually rock bloody solid, with one side absolutely covered in sugar. They’re disgusting. I’ve eaten a whole packet of them today.
I think usually you soak the sponge fingers in the coffee stuff you made earlier, but thankfully there are no fiddly bits in this. Once your bottom layer of fingers is done carefully pour some of the coffee and liqueur over them, letting them soak it all up. Nigella uses half of the liquid on the first layer but I have no idea how much I used but it wasn’t half of it at all. Then again my sponge fingers weren’t absolutely soaked.
I definitely did, however, use half the mascarpone mix on top of this. Spread it out with a spoon so it tucks in to all the edges, and covers all the sponge fingers.
And, simply, repeat! A second layer of fingers, more coffee and then more mascarpone. You’re meant to cover this with cling film and stick it in the fridge but I found it just got stuck all over the top. I’d used a casserole dish as we’re chronically lacking in the kitchenware department so just stuck the lid on.
After at least six hours in the fridge your tiramisu is ready to eat – almost.
I couldn’t find any chopped hazelnuts. Or roasted ones. Anywhere (Waitrose). So I resorted to my old friend the rolling pin. God am I glad I bought this thing. I’ve only used it as a rolling pin in about two recipes, the rest of the time I’ve just pulverised things with it and pretended to beat the crap out of people I don’t like while doing the washing up. Basically, it’s great.
I put the hazelnuts, in their bag, in a tea towel and proceeded to whack the living daylights out of them. This meant some of them were chucky bits and the rest was powdered but hey, perfections for, well, better men than me.
Coat these in two or three teaspoons of cocoa powder and then sprinkle over the top of your tiramisu. Do NOT do this before you leave it to sit in the fridge or it all sinks in and looks a bit yucky. You can sieve this over the top but I always find this a total pain in the arse. Everything just seems to fall through the sieve and end up in one big powdery pile on one bit of cake or tiramisu or whatever.
Anyway – tadaaaa! Tiramisu.
*I fucking loved it and Mummy Duggers had to fight to get a look in.
