Tiramisu by Larina

Heeheeheeee... I attempted to bake. Wait, I don't have an oven (yet). 

Okay, I attempted to make a Tiramisu!

Thanks to Jasmine who talked me into making one and thanks to Tee who taught me in making one :)

Tee is my gym buddy/baker friend/good friend and owner of J Patisserie. Please visit his Facebook page and check out his collection of mouth-watering custom-made wedding cakes, cakes, cupcakes, tarts and desserts. Yum Yum! And of course, don't forget to place your order! :>

Anyhoo, I felt the need to document down my process of learning the most basic of the variants of Tiramisu. It's my 1st attempt afterall :>

Ingredients:

1. Coffee powder (30g)
2. Water (200g)

3. Mascarpone cheese (250g)

4. Castor sugar (75g)

5. Egg yolk (2x)

6. Egg (1 whole)

7. Gelatin (4g)

8. Whipping cream (150g)

9. Ladyfingers (1 packet)

The essential equipment and/or ingredients to make my Tiramisu

(1) Start with setting the gelatin. This is to thicken the cheese mixture later.

Mix 12g of water

with 4g of gelatin to the water and place it in the fridge.

(2) Secondly, set the cheese mixture.

Add 250g of mascarpone cheese,

slightly whisk

and add 45g of castor sugar into it.

Mix well and place mixture in the fridge.

(3) Next, break 1 whole egg with 2 egg yolks and bring the egg mixture to a double boil.

Check out my love shape egg yolk!

Bring water to boil.

(4) Meanwhile, set the coffee syrup (you can opt to add liquor as well).

Add 30g of coffee powder

with 200g of hot water and put the syrup aside.

Once the water starts to boil, place the bowl of egg mixture
on top of the boiling pot

and start whisking and whisking and whisking..

until you achieved this thick paste.

(5) Then, bring out the gelatin from the fridge and microwave it for awhile in order to melt it.

Mix the melted gelatin into the egg mixture

and mix well with the cheese mixture (which was earlier set)
and place it back in the fridge.

(6) Finally, whip up the cream!

Pour 150g of whipping cream

and start whisking until you achieved a thick paste.
(Warning: arms may be sore thereafter)

That's me, posing for a post-whipping shot ;-)

After the cream is whipped up, mix it with the cheese mixture

mix well and put it back in the fridge

(7) Now.. we shall wait for a good 20 minutes for the final cheese mixture to set and chill.

That's Tee resting after delivering his tutorial on
How to Make the Easiest Tiramisu :P

(8) 20 minutes later.. time to set the ladyfingers.

Immerse the ladyfingers into the coffee syrup
(Warning: DO NOT immerse too long..
otherwise your Tiramisu will be extremely bitter, like in my case.
I think I should add more water into the coffee syrup because it was too "KAO"!)

and lay the ladyfingers in the cake tin.

Once the ladyfingers are evenly placed,

add the cheese mousse generously on top and flatten it nicely.
Add another layer of the coffee-laden ladyfingers and repeat the step.

Tadahh, it's done!

Finally, place the cake tin in the freezer instead of the refrigerator (so that it's easier for you to take the Tiramisu out from the tin and place it on your serving plate unless you chose to eat it straight away from the cake tin. Lol)

Once you are ready to serve, simmer some cocoa powder on top and munch away!

FYI, my Tiramisu was not a success because it was too bitter. My housemate, poor Qing Qing, said she couldn't sleep the whole night after eating my Tiramisu! Coffee overload! LOL

More practices needed!

The Royal Press, Malacca

Finally!

A trip to The Royal Press, Melaka since they re-opened to the public after major refurbishment works last year. And so I dragged my ever supportive dear friend Jasmine along with me to Melaka. Good thing was we got to meet Chan Lek and Leanne who traveled up from JB for a gathering session.

So, it's indeed a fruitful day :)

For those who are wondering, The Royal Press is a more than 70 years old letterpress printing shop which has now basically ceased major operations and turned into a museum for public visits. The main intention of the Ee Family (the founder) on the preservation of the Royal Press is to share the art of letterpress printing (which can already be considered a cultural heritage) for generations to come. The ancient method of printing has basically reached the era of extinction but yet many artists, craftsmen, stationers and like parties are hopping on to the time machine to bring letterpress printing back to life. 

For those who have yet to know me or who yet to read my posts on Letterpress in Malaysia and Love Letterpress by Larina, yup, I'm definitely one of the interested parties who will strive to keep letterpress well and alive. I'm not sure if I can be of any service to The Royal Press but I've already signed up for the volunteering works!

You'll probably be overwhelmed with the following snapshots of The Royal Press and be thinking .. WTF? Just take deep breaths and marvel your eyes at the collection of gigantic machines and the library of types (type is a letter or character mounted on a block) in 4 different languages that The Royal Press can offer. Everything is gonna be okay.  

The work desk of the Ee Family

One of the collection of the letterpress machines

The amazing library of types

And you think you've seen it all..

The types are arranged according to the labels

When types and leads meet..perfection is produced

A Linotype machine which is hardly used anymore

Leong, counting the number of types available for each Chinese character 
Very meditating to some :)

Can you see how small the type is?
These are the types used to print newspaper articles in the olden days before the birth of computers.