mix, mix…stir, stir

If tiramisu is offered on a restaurant menu, David and I brace ourselves for the inevitable pitch by our server, “it is the best tiramisu in the city!” Why is tiramisu so competitive?  I don’t hear such claims about other desserts, but nearly without fail we hear it for tiramisu. More often than not the grandness of the claim is directly proportionate to the amount of alcohol the tiramisu is laced with.  A couple tiramisus I have had should have come with a “designated driver needed” warning.

I can play that game. This week’s Tuesday with Dorie Tiramisu Cake is the best tiramisu in any city, ever! Honestly, it’s really good and I would put it up against any restaurant version and probably prefer this one that I can make at home. The hooch is minimal, just enough to provide a nice flavor, but far from enough to get you even slightly buzzed.

I broke free from the recipe in a few places; most notably with the construction. Dorie’s version is a basic 2 layer cake that is fully frosted, but I prefer thinner layers of cake, so I sliced each layer in half. To highlight the layered construction of traditional tiramisu I left the sides unfrosted and made sure to soak the edges of the cake with the coffee syrup so they would be a nice dark contrast to the cream filling.

One of my favorite tiramisus was made by my friend Katja. It didn’t have too much alcohol and it was only subtly sweet.  Because the not very sweet approach worked so well in Katja’s version; I dialed back the sweetness in a few ways. I used bittersweet chocolate to sprinkle between the layers, and I sprinkled on an equal amount of cocoa nibs which have no sweetness at all. I cut down the sugar in the frosting from ½ cup to 1/3 cup and as is traditional for tiramisu, dusted the top with unsweetened cocoa powder. I didn’t change the amount of sugar in the cake because I didn’t want to change the texture of the cake. I did, however, double the salt (1/2 tsp.) and add a ½ tsp. of nutmeg. The nutmeg was surprisingly strong and would have been too much to eat the cake plain, but with the coffee syrup and cream filling it was nicely balanced and added a beautiful warm background flavor.

This is an outstanding cake that is light, not overly rich, not overly sweet, and doesn’t require a designated driver. I guess to some those criteria wouldn’t equate to an outstanding cake, but in my book it was. Because the filling is quite soft and fluffy, this really isn’t a cake that you would want to travel very far with. Thank you to Megan of My Baking Adventures for selecting this week’s baking project. She has the recipe posted on her blog if you want to make your very own “best tiramisu in the city.” You can even make one that requires a designated driver and has extra sugar if that’s the way you like it!

I, along with over 350 other baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 72 recipes completed 149 to go!

The 2009 James Beard Awards were just announced and I wanted to highlight the book awards. I own or have read many of these books and the rest will no doubt end up on my list. I am thrilled to see Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, with Recipes win Cookbook of the Year, and it won Best Single Subject too. I have flipped through it at the store and will most likely buy a copy once I test drive it from the library, though there are still 16 people ahead of me in the queue. I may just break down and buy a copy.

Cookbook of the Year

Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, with Recipes
Author: Jennifer McLagan

American Cooking

Screen Doors and Sweet Tea: Recipes and Tales from a Southern Cook
by Martha Hall Foose

Baking

Bakewise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking
by Shirley O. Corriher
This is a fantastic book. I have her first book written up in Essential References, and need to add this one.

Beverage

WineWise: Your Complete Guide to Understanding, Selecting, and Enjoying Wine
by Steven Kolpan, Brian H. Smith, and Michael A. Weiss, The Culinary Institute of America

Cooking From a Professional Point of View

Alinea
by Grant Achatz
A beautiful book with some of the most complicated recipes I have ever seen. Really interesting read and great for inspiring ideas.

General Cooking

How to Cook Everything (Completely Revised Tenth Anniversary Edition)
by Mark Bittman

Healthy Focus

The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life
by Ellie Krieger

International

Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China
by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid
This is one of my favorite books. It is stunningly beautiful and takes you on a journey. I have a review in Essential References.

Photography

The Big Fat Duck Cookbook
Photographer: Dominic Davies

Reference and Scholarship

The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America’s Most Imaginative Chefs
by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg
One of my most referenced books. I keep this out on my kitchen counter and turn to it all the time for inspiration. Read my review in Essential References.

Single Subject

Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, with Recipes
by Jennifer McLagan

Writing and Literature

In Defense of Food
by Michael Pollan

This isn’t a book award, but I have to highlight a local Seattle journalist, Rebekah Denn of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. She won for Newspaper Feature with Recipes for her article, “High on the Hairy Hogs: Super-Succulent Imports are Everything U.S. Pork Isn’t.”

Happy reading! Check out the rest of the 2009 winners of James Beard Foundation Awards.

TableFare is thrilled to have Gale Gand contribute to this month’s Spice Inspirtaion feature with some inspiration on using pepper in desserts. She gives recipes for White Pepper Shortbread and Strawberries in Syrup that are easy to make and delicious proof  that pepper is great in desserts.