Heaven on a dessert plate

Due to the very silly season getting not ending until this past weekend, I've been a bit slack in participating in the Daring Baker Challenges. However, this month pick of tiramisu, really got me all excited. Considering I have a constant line of friends that will never, ever refuse a tiramisu, what better motivation could there be?

The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.

This challenge including making the Savoiardi sponge fingers and the mascapone cheese from scratch. The recipe also had a challenging twist to it with a zabaglione as well as the cheese.

The ladyfingers we easy enough to make. I found my batter a little too runny for my liking, but they turned out quite well.

Because I'm not a big fan of the traditional addition of madeira, I decided that I'd do a Jamacian twist and add a splash of rum to the coffee for soaking. Rum and coffee are good friends aren't they? Anyways, it turned out lovely. Add shavings of dark chocolate instead of the usual cocoa dusting..... and viola....!

As the hosts say, heaven on a desert plate!! A real 'pick me up' (translation of tiramisu)!
This was the tiramisu made with the store bought savoiardi fingers the evening after I made it. Another 24 hours later when its had time to mature..... the fingers were meltingly soft and oh so very delicious!

This last one is made with my savoiardi fingers. As you can see, they are thinner and naturally, more layers. Maybe you'd like to be a daring baker and give it a go too!