The Killington Wine Festival was this weekend; very happy that our good friends that live close to the mountain invite us up for a wonderful event it’s always a good time.  We start with a light lunch then we all head to the mountain and try lots and lots of wine. Thankfully we stay on the mountain and have a “well-planned” BBQ. This year’s dinner was excellent. After a few failed attempts over the last few years at varied menus, you have great aspirations before the wine tasting but sometimes execution doesn’t quite come out as planned.this year we came up with a winning menu. We marinated steak tips, prepped hasselback potatoes (I will write about these soon the ones who have had them have asked me to) and I was in charge of bringing dessert; well it didn’t all turn out all as planned, somebody forgot to bring the asparagus. but that’s OK. My brilliant husband came up with me making Tiramisu. If you have been following my blog at all you will see a pattern with him. He loves coming up with delicious yet pretty involved things for me to make. As you will probably also be able to tell; I am enabler since I usually make what he comes up with.They do say the first step is to admit it.

 

I had totally intended to make this Friday night so I didn’t have to rush around in the morning.  Sometimes things don’t always work out according to my plans. It was getting late and I was completely exhausted so I decided to break the recipe up and then finish it up in the morning. Sometimes it actually works out even better when time is tight to make parts of recipes and assemble the final product when you have time.

Tiramisu

6 egg yolks

¾ cup white sugar

2/3 cup milk

1 ¼ cups heavy cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 pound mascarpone cheese

½ cup strong brewed coffee, room temperature

2 tablespoons rum

2 (3 ounce) packages ladyfinger cookies

1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder – use a strainer to help distribute cocoa evenly

In a medium saucepan, whisk together egg yolks and sugar until well blended.  Whisk in milk and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture boils.  Boil gently for 1 minute, remove from heat and allow to cool slightly. Cover tightly and chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour.

In a medium bowl, beat cream with vanilla until stiff peaks form, whisk mascarpone into yolk mixture until smooth.

In a small bowl, combine coffee and rum. Split ladyfingers in half lengthwise and drizzle with coffee mixture. Once they get wet it is hard to move them, so if you want to place them in their spot and then drizzle it will work out better for you. 

Arrange half of soaked ladyfingers in bottom of 10×10″ (don’t worry about the size, use what you have) dish. Spread half of mascarpone mixture over ladyfingers, then half of whipped cream over that. Repeat layers and sprinkle with cocoa.  Cover and refrigerate 4-6 hours, until set.  My husband actually thinks it tasted better today Sunday than it did last night; I am not going to listen too much to this since it was after lots and lots of wine – his judgment might have been a little impaired. 

I made the coffee and the egg yolk sugar portion Friday night. Saturday morning I whipped the cream and assembled much easier I think.