God's Growing Garden: Tiramisu Made With Zwieback RECIPE

Tiramisu Made With Zwieback RECIPE

Tiramisu is traditionally made with ladyfingers. Ladyfingers are spongy cake-like cookies that are supposed to soak up the coffee in the Italian dessert Tiramisu. However, I have often found ladyfingers to be so soaked with the coffee that they break down and the coffee pools or makes a puddle under the dessert.

Recently Zwieback was on super sale at my local grocery store so I bought a few boxes. When I was a child my mom always used to give me Zwieback with chamomile tea when I was recovering from the flu. I had never dunked these "twice baked" (that's literally what "Zwieback" means) treats in coffee before, so I decided to try that with these sale Zwiebacks - it's delicious! That's when I decided to use them for Tiramisu instead of ladyfingers.

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

1 sleeve of Zwieback (each package contains 2 sleeves)

2/3 cup very strong coffee (cooled)

Kahlua coffee liqueur OR rum extract

1 small container of ricotta cheese (15oz) (the true Tiramisu uses mascarpone cheese but it's too expensive for me)

1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream (measure before whipping)

Powdered sugar for sweetening cheese & cream

almond extract

unsweetened cocoa powder (for sprinkling on top)

natural cane sugar (or granulated sugar)

Begin with a square Pyrex dish and arrange one sleeve of dry Zwieback toasts - you might have to break a few to fit (as seen in the picture on the right below).

Take your cooled coffee and stir in a tablespoon or two of Kahlua (OR a teaspoon of rum extract). Then gently pour the coffee mixture evenly over all the Zwieback (see both pictures below).

Wait about 5 minutes for the Zwieback to totally soak up the coffee (see picture below on the left). Then evenly sprinkle natural cane sugar on top of the soaked Zwieback (right picture below)

In a mixing bow - with a heavy whisk or an electric mixer blend the ricotta cheese, almond extract (I used very concentrated almond extract that only requires a few drops - if you are using regular liquid almond extract then I would use up to 1/2 teaspoon) with 1/4 cup of powdered sugar (if you like it sweeter than you can put 1/3 cup of sugar - no more than 1/3 cup though). Whisk until fully combined (see third picture below)