Tiramisu Recipe

Tiramisu is a fantastic dessert. I have read several recipes of varying degrees of difficulty in the last few years. The first time I made it, I used eggs and it was a complex process and I used mascarpone cheese. The next time I made the recipe, I decided to drop the eggs, since I was not comfortable with adding raw eggs to the dessert.

Thus far I had always made it using mascarpone cheese and the result had been light and fluffy and wonderful. I had a packet of cream cheese lying in my fridge a week ago and I was quite torn on how to use it. I thought about baking a cheesecake, but since I didn't have all the other required ingredients, I gave up on that idea and decided to try out my Tiramisu recipe, substituting the mascarpone with creamcheese. The end result was so delicious and decadent, that I think this is the recipe that I will stick to in the future.

So without much ado, here's the recipe. Note how simple and easy it is!!!

Ingredients
15-20 ladyfingers (use the hard ones which resemble cookies/biscuits, use the fresh baked ones which resemble angel cakes only if you cannot find the hard ones)
8 ounce cream cheese 
1 pint heavy whipping cream
1-1.5 cup confectioner's sugar (this can be adjusted to taste)
1 cup brewed coffee (you can either brew fresh coffee or use 2 scoops of instant coffee powder added to 8 ounces of hot water. Cool it to room temperature)
2 tbsp cocoa powder

Method
Whip the heavy whipping cream till the cream is stiff and peaks can be formed. Whip softened cream cheese till its creamy. Fold in the whipped cream into the beaten cream cheese. Add the sugar a little at a time and mix it all together. The resultant mixture should not be overwhelmingly sweet. Adjust the sugar based on how sweet you want your tiramisu to be. Dip the ladyfingers one at a time into the coffee solution. Do not soak it. Arrange a layer of these coffee dipped ladyfingers at the bottom of a rectangular serving dish. Spread half of the cream cheese mixture over this layer. Add the second layer of coffee dipped ladyfingers next. Top it with the remaining cream cheese mixture. Use a sieve to dust cocoa powder on top of the assembled layers. Chill this for 2-4 hours. Your tiramisu is ready!!! Sprinkle additional cocoa powder before serving.

Tips
The whisk, bowl and cream should be cold so that whipping is faster and the cream stays stiff upon whipping. The cream cheese needs to be brought to room temperature before whipping. This can be done by keep the cream cheese outside the fridge for about 30 mins. Confectioner's sugar has some cornflour and this stabilizes the cream cheese mixture in the absence of egg yolks.Taste the cream cheese mixture after adding 1 cup of sugar. You may need to add more than 1.5 cups if you want it to be sweeter. Some rum can also be added to the coffee concoction in which the ladyfingers are dipped.

This is goes to the Thanda Mela and the Monthly Mingle too.