For ➑3 eggs, separated
5 tbs sugar
170 g mascarpone
36 Savoiardi (lady finger biscuits)
25 cl orange liqueur
25 cl espresso coffee
50 g black chocolate, grated
10 g cocoa powder (or 50 bittersweet chocolate, grated)
Combine egg yolks and sugar in a medium-sized bowl and beat well.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.
In a third, larger bowl, combine the egg yolk mixture with the mascarpone, then fold in the egg whites to produce a creamy mixture.
Arrange a tight layer of ladyfingers in a 22x30 cm serving dish.
Using a spoon, drizzle about half the liqueur and half the espresso over the ladyfingers.
Cover the ladyfingers with the mascarpone mixture and the grated chocolate, and dust it with a little more than half the cocoa.
Cover the filling with a second layer of ladyfingers and drizzle with the remaining liqueur and espresso.
Top with the remaining cocoa before serving.
Italian cinema diva Sophia Loren has published two collections of her favourite recipes, Italian of course, Neapolitan by proxy, la cucina sfiziosa, hearty food with a little extra. Here she gives her version of the tiramisu dessert, substituting the classic amaretto by orange liqueur.
The forerunner of the tiramisu, with custard, rather than mascarpone cheese, was popular in Tuscany, as zuppa del duca, a dessert for the ducal visit of Cosimo III de' Medici to Sienna, or the closely related zuppa inglese, the Italian version of the English trifle. No written sources about the recipe are available before 1983, pointing to its appearance in 1971 in Veneto's Treviso . The name means 'cheer up' or 'give some strength', giving birth to legends that the dessert was invented by Venetian lace-workers, or women of a casa chiuso**, or by Northern Italian wives making it for their soldier husbands in WWI. It became widely popular in the 1980's.
Read more Sophia Loren recipes: Sophia Loren's raw tomato spaghetti, vermicelli with sauce alla Sofia.
(**Several Italian dishes are rumoured to have been invented by women of the trade to regain their strength, such as the spaghetti alla puttanesca.)
