We had some guests coming for a visit and I had to come up with something to bake. We have a several decades old bottle of Amaretto liqueur sitting in our shelf and I decided to give it some use. The result was a bit modified version of the classic Italian delicacy. The cacao-flavoured sugar cake absorbs a lot of liquid so the cake is deliciously moist. The quark adds freshness to mascarpone and the coffee and Amaretto just make it perfect. If you don't want to use Amaretto any almond or coffee liqueur is fine. If you want to avoid alcohol you can also use water and almond extract.
A word of warning: This recipe is not vegan. Nor is it healthy. But it's so incredibly delicious that it makes up for all that. Because of both ethical and nutritional reasons I use only organic dairy products and eggs. The factory farm cows are pumped full of hormones to make them grow faster and they are also fed with antibiotics to prevent them from getting infections. All of that is in their milk so next time you buy milk think of all the hormones and drugs you're putting in your body. The same thing applies to the eggs. Also several viruses, like the H1N1 spread from factory farms. Using growth hormones and drugs is forbidden in organic farming so at least when buying organic animal products you know what you're eating.
This recipe is a lot easier than the traditional tiramisu recipes but it has the same wonderful taste of Italy. I highly recommend using organic eggs and dairy products to not only make the cake taste better but to also make it better for you.
Organic Quark Tiramisu
Cake:
- 4 organic eggs
- 1½ decilitres cane sugar
- 1 decilitre flour ( feel free to use whole wheat)
- 1½ decilitres dark unsweetened cacao powder (and more for sprinkling)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
Moistening:
- 1 decilitre strong black coffee
- ½ decilitre Amaretto liqueur
Filling:
- 2 organic eggs
- ½ decilitre sugar
- 250 grams organic quark
- 250 grams organic mascarpone cheese
- 3/4 decilitres orange/apricot marmelade
First prepare the cake. Preheat the oven into 200°C. Cover a sheet pan with bakery paper. Sift together the flour cacao powder and baking powder. Beat together eggs and sugar until the mixture has thickened and turned pale yellow. Mix the dry ingredients into the sugar-egg mixture. Spread the batter on a sheet pan and bake for 10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Lay the cake upside down on a another bakery paper sprinkled with sugar and carefully remove the paper it was baked with.
Now prepare the filling. First beat the eggs and sugar just like you did with the batter. In a separate bowl beat together quark and mascarpone. Add the mascarpone-mixture into the egg-sugar-mixture and mix well. Mix in the marmalade.
Cut the cake in half. Mix together the coffee and Amaretto. Use half of the moistening on one half of the cake. Spread half of the filling on the cake. Lay the second half on top, moisten it and spread the rest of the filling. Sift some cacao powder on top. Let the cake rest in the fridge for at least a couple of hours before serving (you may also prepare it the day before serving).
Read more about factory farming:
In English:
http://www.greathealthconnection.com/2011/meat-from-factory-farms-full-of-dangerous-hormones/
In Finnish:
http://kulma.net/mkevat/hormooni.html
http://www.taloussanomat.fi/ihmiset/2011/02/06/taman-jalkeen-et-enaa-syo-elaimia/20111728/12
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