Tiramisu Cake
I am so excited about this tiramisu cake!
I baked this cake ten days ago, for my little brother's birthday on September 6. After I finished the cake the day before the birthday, I was just so excited because it looked so good. :D I think this is the best-looking cake I've ever made.
Look at the layers of it: The sponge cake, the cream cheese frosting, and the coffee. All topped with cocoa powder and some chocolate shavings for embellishment. On September six we sang happy birthday to my little brother and he blew the candles really cutely. We had a fun evening and I gave my little brother a crayon caddy that I had sewn. These days I'm back into sewing. I'm going to upload the crayon caddy in this blog soon!
So when we cut into this cake my family all said that it was good. I thought it was good too, but not perfect. Oh well, it's my first time. The cream cheese filling had a hint of sourness, and I spread too much coffee syrup on the sponge cake layers. I've found out why the cream was sour though: It was because of the taste of the yogurt. Turkish yogurt is very sour. Still, I'm very proud of this cake because it overall tasted great.
Afterwards I figured out all the ways to improve this tiramisu. Below is my improved recipe to make a perfect tiramisu.
Tiramisu (Makes one 8-inch cake)
Ingredients
FOR THE SPONGE CAKE
-4 1/2 room-temp. eggs (For the 1/2 egg beat it lightly with fork and divide between two cups)
-150g white granulated sugar
-135g all-purpose flour
-30g melted butter
FOR THE CREAM CHEESE FILLING
-2.5 sheets of gelatine
-275g cream cheese
-88g sugar
-100g plain yogurt, make sure it's not a sour kind
-165ml cold heavy cream
FOR THE COFFEE SYRUP
-100ml water
-50g sugar
-15g instant coffee powder
-1 tsp. rum (optional)
DECORATION
-some chocolate
-4 tbsp. cocoa powder
Instructions
FOR THE SPONGE CAKE
1. Line a 8-inch spring-form pan with parchment paper.
2. Pour hot water into a big basin. Place a smaller bowl on top of it. Fill the smaller bowl with the four and a half eggs.
3. Beat the eggs with a whisk until pale and foamy. Preheat your oven at this point to 180 degrees Celsius.
4. Add the sugar little by little, dividing it into three additions. Beat at high-speed (with a hand-mixer) for 1 minute after each addition. After adding all the sugar, continue beating at low speed for about 2 more minutes. When you lift the mixture with your beater, a trail should be left behind, kind of like honey.
5. Sift in the flour and fold it in quickly with a spatula. If you mix too much, the delicate air bubbles inside the mixture (which you want) will disappear! Only mix until well-incorporated.
6. Put in the melted butter and stir quickly until combined well.
7. Pour the batter into your prepared pan. Put it in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
8. Let it cool completely.
With a cake leveller or bread knife, cut out two 1cm thick slices from the cooled sponge cake.
On wide plate, place one of the sponge cake layers. Wrap a cake collar around it.
FOR THE COFFEE SYRUP
1. In a small saucepan, add all coffee syrup ingredients except the rum. Place it on low heat.
2. When the syrup starts boiling in the center as well as the edges, take it off the heat.
3. After the coffee syrup cools completely stir the rum in.
FOR THE CREAM CHEESE FILLING
1. Soak gelatine sheets in cold water for 20 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, add cream cheese to a large bowl and whisk until creamy. Add the sugar and whisk until incorporated and creamy.
3. Add the unsour yogurt and stir, until combined, with no lumps.
4. In another bowl, add heavy cream and whisk rapidly until soft peaks form. Place the bowl in the fridge while you work with the gelatine again.
5. Now, squeeze the water out from the soaked gelatine sheets. Place them in a bowl and put that bowl on top of another bowl filled with hot water. Melt the gelatine in this way.
6. Take a spatuful of the cream cheese filling from steps 2-3 and plop it into the melted gelatine. Stir until incorporated and then pour the mixture back into the cream cheese filling. Fold it in with a spatula until everything's well-incorporated with no gelatine stuck at the bottom of the bowl.
7. Take the whipped cream from step 4 and add it to the cream cheese filling batter. Fold it in with a spatula until everything's incorporated and smooth. Note: Work quickly from this step on because the gelatine might firm up.
8. Remember the sponge cake wrapped in cake collar that we've prepared? Now, with a brush, brush half of the coffee syrup on the surface of that sponge cake layer. (I didn't end up using all the coffee syrup, but brushed the sponge cake surfaces only until they were coated)
9. Place half of the cream cheese filling on the sponge cake layer brushed with coffee syrup. Spread the cream evenly with a spatula.
10. Place the second sponge cake layer on top of the cream and brush the surface again with the remaining coffee syrup. But again, only brush surfaces until coated.
11. Place the leftover cream on top of that second sponge cake layer and smooth it out well.
FOR THE DECORATION
1. Let the tiramisu firm up in the fridge for two hours, then dust it with the cocoa powder.
2. With a spoon, scrape the chocolate so that shavings form. Drop the shavings onto the center of the cake as embellishment.
3. Let the tiramisu firm up some more (I left it overnight but you probably only need 3 hours), before taking off the cake collar and slicing into the cake. ENJOY!
Recipe adapted from a Korean cookbook named 진짜 기본 베이킹 책 by super recipes. http://www.super-recipe.co.kr/etc_06/etc_s4_01.php?inc=view&idx=130&tbname=notice