For our psychology of intercultural diversity class we have to do a creativity project. We are supposed to pick a creative activity that incorporates and integrates cultural immersion experiences. One of the options is cooking an authentic Italian recipe. So my roommate Lindsay and I decided to work together and make homemade sauce for tortellini, bread, garlic and olive oil to dip, and then tiramisu. We plan to cook dinner for our 5 other roommates tomorrow and then we invited other friends for dessert after. The tiramisu recipe we chose was Sophia Loren’s tiramisu recipe which requires you to let it sit for 12 hours or more. So we had to make the tiramisu today. I love baking and have made a lot of different things but never tiramisu. However, we both figured with clear instructions and two college students working on it, we wouldn’t have many issues. Well true to the Italian way, something that appears simple, is really not simple at all…
After class, Lindsay and I headed to our local supermarket, “Conad”, armed with our list of ingredients we needed. We already had granulated sugar and we planned on purchasing espresso from the cafe downstairs. What remained on the list was: lady fingers, eggs, marscapone cheese, espresso, orange liquor, cocoa powder, and semi sweet chocolate to shave. Simple enough….right?
The biscotta (cookie) section is right when you walk in, so we decided to look for lady fingers first. But of course there are no cookies labeled “lady fingers”, why it didn’t occur to us that in Italian it would be called something different I am not sure, but none the less it took staring aimlessly at the many packages of cookies to realize we had a problem. Of course lady fingers are an essential ingredient and getting the wrong thing could ruin our precious tiramisu, so I took out my handy Webster’s Italian-English dictionary and double checked how I would ask. I went to the cashier and with my biggest American smile and best Italian accent asked “Quale biscotta per tiramisu?” (which cookie for tiramisu?”, he immediately smiled and came over and showed us a couple different ones based on price. I thanked him “grazie” and we grabbed enough and moved on to our next item.
Eggs, marscapone cheese and orange liquor were easy.
Then came the chocolate and cocoa. We started with the chocolate. We knew we needed 6 oz times 2 because we were making a double batch. However, once we got to the chocolate section we realized again that we were in Italy and therefore nothing was going to be labeled in ounces. I know it sounds like we are dumb, but the truth is that in living here for 3 weeks, it has become almost as comfortable as home, and so you often forget you are in Italy. But you are quickly reminded when you are staring at a bar of chocolate labeled in grams! The helpful cashier noticed us staring for way too long at the chocolate and came over to ask if he could help. I told him we were having issues because of the conversion of ounces to grams. However, he really didn’t understand English, so he called over the other cashier. He came over and said, “ok speak english, but really slowly”. So I very slowly explained our problem and his response was: “oh, thats serious, tough stuff!” followed by a look of I can’t help you with that lol. But then he ran off and came back with a package of mini semi-sweet morsels and said this would work instead. We were very thankful and told him so. We found our cocoa powder and headed to check out. Once we had checked out the cashiers asked us if we would bring them some. We said we would try to bring some tomorrow and asked them when they would be working. On our way back to the apartment we decided we would take it all upstairs, figure out how much espresso we needed and run back down to buy it.
Once we got out our laptops and started working on figuring out espresso, we realized we would need A LOT of espresso and purchasing it at the cafe downstairs was not in our budget. We also realized we needed another packet of cocoa. So off to the Conad we went again. Of course the two cashiers laughed as we walked in. We found the cocoa powder and then settled on a box of packets of instant espresso. I know that sounds bad but it was a box in all Italian so we figured it had to be ok. Plus we wanted to be cheap, we had already spent a decent amount on a dessert I wasn’t sure was ever going to get finished! When we bought them the one cashier told us the espresso we picked was “good stuff”. Proud to have made a good decision we left with our purchases.
Back at the apartment the espresso making marathon began. Using 3 little espresso cups and lots of packets we eventually made over 470 mL of espresso. Adding another couple packets to add some stronger taste we finally finished about 30 minutes later. Now it was time to actually make the tiramisu….
Mixing the egg yolks, sugar and marscapone cheese was easy, and Lindsay completed the task perfectly. I took on the task of whisking the egg whites into stiff peaks…not so perfectly! I would like to thank my mother for owning a Kitchen Aid mixer, and for providing a hand mixer for me in college. I fully appreciated them today when I had to hand whisk! After a while and help from our roommate Jess we finally had egg whites that semi resembled stiff peaks. We folded them in and moved on with our task.
The rest of the process went pretty well. The cookies were coated with espresso and orange liquor and the marscapone mix went on smoothly. The chocolate looked pretty on the creamy white mixture but the cocoa powder was a little messy. Unfortunately Lindsay got into a little altercation with the cocoa powder and her pants suffered a decent covering…but thanks to some good Italian laundry detergent they were saved! After the second level of cookies, espresso and liqour it was time to put the remaining marscapone on top. We were making two batches to have enough for our friends but we quickly realized we would not have enough to cover both. Sadly we had no other option. (we contimplated asking a neighbor for eggs but wasn’t sure how to ask in Italian and decided it wasn’t worth it) So in the end, we had one whole tiramisu that was made correctly….we think. And another one that has two layers of marscapone on half and only one layer on the other half. We covered it with plenty of cocoa powder so from first apperance you wouldn’t know any better. Into the fridge they went…after we rearranged the entire thing of course. I also appreciate my large fridge now!
After all was said and done, it was a fun afternoon. Although it didn’t go smoothly, we made the best of it. Turned on some Coldplay and tried to stay relaxed through the process. Because of our endeavor we got to meet two cashiers at our local grocery store and practiced our Italian. They are both nice guys and we plan on bringing them by some tiramisu before class tomorrow. Tomorrow night a group of our friends will come over to share in our creation. We told them we would provide dessert but they should BYOW (bring your own wine). Our midterm in pyschology is tomorrow so it will be a great way to celebrate being half way done, as well as a great kick off to our fun weekend in Rome! Can’t say I’ll be making tiramisu again in Italy but I am confident that back in the states it will go smoothly. I’ll keep you posted on how it turned out.
Ciao
.
