a whisk and a spoon

Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Inside-Out, Upside-Down Tirami Sù

Gale Gand’s Inside-Out, Upside-Down Tirami Sù is pretty different from the tiramisu I usually make.  The flavors are all here, but this reinterprets the dessert into a mix of textures and temperatures.  Instead of ladyfinger biscuits soaked and layered into something so soft you can glide a spoon through, here you get shatteringly crisp phyllo disks sandwiching a luxurious mascarpone sabayon and an icy-cold espresso granita.

I baked off my scrunched up phyllo disks in 4-inch ring molds, which worked really well.  I left the ginger out of the sugar sprinkled on top of them, because I didn’t want that flavor here.  I did, however, want a nice splash of Kahlúa in my sabayon, so I added that.

This is kind of a posh plated dessert, but you can get the three easy steps (phyllo disks, granita and sabayon) done earlier in the day and just assemble it all right before serving.  You really can’t wait to eat it once you’ve put the granita on, because it starts to melt immediately!  By the way, I have plenty of granita left in the freezer…I’m thinking of turning it into an espresso-frappe-milkshake-type concoction.  Bonus.

For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan.  Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!