Lately

November 20th, 2006  | Category: Baked Goods, Cookies

Sinan M&M

Majority of my friends’ and their kids’ birthdays happen to be in the October - November time frame, so there had been a lot of baking done in my kitchen lately.

Here’s the latest. Personalized M&M cookies for two of my friends’ kids. Both of their names are Sinan so an order of candies was more than enough for these monsters. I also had a very hard working and dedicated assistant: Lal (sister of one of the Sinans).

And on the 13th, it was my best friend’s birthday. It has been quite the tradition that I cook for him and his fiance on his birthday but this year, now that they get married and have their own place, his wife (also my very close friend) did all the cooking and it was amazing. Too bad that I don’t have any pictures to show it.

However, the birthday cake was up to me. Having received a huge order for Pure by Cuppa the day before, I needed yet again a quick and simple recipe so that I could get to bed at a decent hour (and that is 2 -3 am).

Planning was key. I had to bake two orders of Hazelnut biscotti, an order of Ricotta Basil muffins an order of Parmesan Poppy Seed Straws and I had to squeeze in his birthday cake. Having to do all of these after a full work day (meaning starting at around 8 p.m.) I tried to think of a simple recipe that would taste great and appeal to the eye at the same time. I recalled seeing Italian lady finger cookies (can you believe they were not available in Ä°stanbul up until now) I thought maybe I can come up with a simple Tiramisu.

Tiramisu

The majority of the Tiramisu recipes I found in my cooking books and online had raw eggs in them. Since I am not a big fan of raw eggs, I tossed all the recipes away and came up with my own no-bake-just-assembly Tiramisu recipe. Here’s what you do:

Tiramisu

Ingredients

Method (or shall we say assembly)

  1. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat Mascarpone cheese and powdered sugar with the whisk attachment until fluffy. Gradually add the heavy cream and two tablespoons of Bailey’s Irish cream and whisk the mixture for 5-10 minutes, until firm. Set aside.
  2. Shave the milk chocolate. Soak the cookies in coffee (don’t let them sit, just roll both surfaces very quickly) and assemble a layer on the bottom of a (preferably square and deep) serving dish. Add a layer of the cream mixture and top with shaved chocolate. Continue for three layers and finish with the final layer of cream. Top it all with milk chocolate and refrigerate until dessert time. The result was a definite winner. Enjoy!

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Comments

  1. Hande on November 21st, 2006

    But Cenk,
    we have always had “kedi dili”, which works perfectly for Tiramisu!

  2. Cenk on November 21st, 2006

    It is quite strange that I never came across those ever in my life. I just asked my brother and found out that my mom used to prepare desserts with it when I was a kid but I really do not remember at all. I should go out and find some Turkish ones!

  3. Eerry Z.Stable on November 22nd, 2006

    Salivating again…. Have you tried dissolving some unflavored gelatin to the liquid mixes? It will give you enough consistency to be able to use a spring-form.

  4. Cenk on November 22nd, 2006

    Thanks Eerry. Actually the soft cream mixture was what I intended for initially, but thanks for the suggestion.

  5. Basak on November 24th, 2006

    But this is so nice!
    Yes, in Nord Italy we do quite the same, but not with Irish Cream of course.. We use a little bit “Rhum”, which we add to the coffee..
    (but I will try I.Cream)..

    And the cookies are famous “Savoiardi”.
    Kedidil in Turkey, would do the same.
    As a coffee, fresh coffee made with mocca, never ever Nescafe or else…
    And cover it with cacao…

    E Buon Appetito a Tutti!

    ps: Since one year, I have eliminated raw eggs. No big difference. No one understands it : )… a secret…

  6. totipoti on November 30th, 2006

    personalized M&Ms are great.
    pls let me know if shipping direct to istanbul is available
    thanks.

  7. Cenk on November 30th, 2006

    Hi there,
    No they do not ship directly to Turkey. I have a mailbox in US and I had it sent there. Then I had it rerouted here. I am using http://www.myus.com for overseas shipments and quite happy with it.
    Best
    Cenk

  8. Laily on January 31st, 2008

    Cenk,

    Just wandering thru your blog. I haven’t seen it entirely. Just noticed that we share the same disregard towards using raw eggs…

    This is a good recipe to have without the eggs. I will try it, someday (soon) I hope!

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