Tiramisu in a cup

My husband loves tiramisu and every time he goes to a restaurant, he never fails to order the tiramisu for dessert. So one day, we decided to try making our own at home. Little did we know that it is such a simple dessert to make!

We adapted the recipe from here. This version of tiramisu has the eggs cooked which is safer for consumption. The original recipe calls for a loaf pan to assemble the tiramisu. We used that initially but find that using small cups is easier and more convenient (one cup for myself, two cups for my husband, heehee). You just have to break up the ladyfingers into smaller pieces to fit into the cups.

We altered some of the amount of the liquids, mascarpone cheese and sugar because we want the tiramisu to be creamier and also less sweet. You can do your own modification.

Cream Filling:
150 ml milk, divided 100ml, 50ml
100 grams granulated white sugar, divided 50g, 50g
35 grams all purpose flour
6 large egg yolks
60 ml Kahlua
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
57 grams unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
500 grams mascarpone cheese

Ladyfingers

Coffee Soaking Syrup:
100 ml very strong brewed coffee or espresso (4 tbsp)
60 ml Kahlua

Topping:
cocoa powder for garnishing
bittersweet chocolate, grated or chopped


Method:
2 day before you need the dessert, put 100 ml milk and 50 grams sugar in a saucepan. Place over medium heat, and bring this mixture just to boiling, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, in a heatproof bowl, whisk together the remaining milk, sugar, flour, and egg yolks.

When the milk comes to a boil, gradually whisk it into the egg yolk mixture. You must continue to whisk as you pour to prevent the egg yolks from curdling.

Transfer this mixture back into the saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it comes to a boil. When it boils, continue to stir until it thickens.

Remove from heat and strain into a large bowl. This will remove any lumps that may have formed.

Whisk in the Kahlua, vanilla extract, and butter.

Cover the surface of the custard with plastic wrap to prevent a crust from forming. Leave it in the fridge overnight to cool.

The next day or once the custard has cooled sufficiently, remove from the refrigerator.

In a mixer with paddle attachment, beat the mascarpone cheese at low speed until it is soft and smooth. Gently beat the cold custard into the mascarpone until smooth.

Custard done, ready to incorporate with the mascarpone cheese

In a large bowl combine the coffee (espresso) and Kahlua.

Place a layer of cream filling at the bottom of the cup. We use a large ice-cream scoop to make sure that the amount in each cup is about the same.

Break the ladyfingers into 3 or 4 parts. Soak each part individually for a few seconds and place it gently onto the layer of cream filling. Do not soak in the coffee syrup for too long or the ladyfinger will disintegrate in your hands.

Ensure that the ladyfingers are in a flat layer. If after soaking the ladyfingers for all the cups and you still have some coffee syrup left, you can brush the leftover syrup on the ladyfingers directly. Again, do not overload the ladyfingers with the coffee syrup or you will get a soggy mess.

One layer of cream filling with a layer of ladyfingers

To have the cup look nicer when you see it from the side, sift a layer of cocoa powder onto the ladyfingers. This is form a dark line in the middle of the cream fillings.

A layer of cocoa powder after the ladyfingers

Put another scoop of cream filling onto the ladyfingers. If you have a taller cup, you can put another layer of ladyfingers and topped it with another layer of cream filling. This is the final scoop for my case. After that, gently shake the cups to even out the top layer.

Final layer of cream filling

You can keep this in the fridge until you need it. We leave it in the fridge for one more night to let the coffee syrup in the ladyfingers and the cream fillings mixed together for better flavour.

Before serving, sift another layer of cocoa powder and grate some bittersweet chocolate on the surface. Do not do it too early or the cocoa powder will absorb the moisture from the cream filling and it will look dark and clumpy.

Savory Bacon Jam

I was introduced to bacon jam by a colleague one day. Being a lover of unhealthy food (tasty food is usually unhealthy, haha!), I went to a local cafe (Jewel Café+Bar) that serves homemade bacon jam to try it out for breakfast the very next morning with my significant half, Esther.

Bacon jam doesn't taste like the typical fruit jam at all. It tasted like a fusion of bacon, bak kwa (a type of Chinese BBQ pork jerky) and caramelised char siew (a type of Cantonese BBQ pork). Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the taste of it. It is oily (bacon fat, duh!), sweet, salty, spicy and has a tinge of sourness with an underlying coffee aroma. In the cafe we went to, it was served with chunky slices of baguette (the dish is called Fat Soldiers, haha!). I think bacon jam goes well with everything, but that's just me...

"Fat Soldiers" from Jewel Café+Bar

On the way back from the cafe, I was already googling for recipes of bacon jam. I didn't know that it is so popular yet very simple to make as well. And as a bonus, there can be many variations to it. You need something sweet (sugar/maple syrup/honey), something salty (comes with the bacon), something sour (apple cider vinegar/balsamic vinegar/Worcestershire sauce), something spicy (mustard/hot sauce/paprika/chili powder/pepper) to give some heat and coffee. Most recipes include aromatics as well such as garlic, shallots and onions. You can add whatever ingredient you want as long as you stick to the above criteria. Some recipes even add a touch of alcohol like bourbon.

Being the experimental me, I looked for the most appealing recipe, and added extra ingredients from other recipes to round up the taste. The only "difficult" part of making bacon jam is the simmering and stirring to reduce the mass into semi-solid sludge. You can use a slow cooker for the simmering stage.

Without further delays, I present to you, our experimental bacon jam...

Ingredients
2kg bacon, (we used 1kg bacon back and 1kg streaky bacon)
3 big white onions (sweet variety), peeled and roughly sliced
7 to 10 shallot, peeled and roughly sliced
5 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
250ml pure maple syrup
60ml balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
100g brown sugar
freshly ground black pepper to taste
salt to taste (you can use the drained liquid obtained while cooking the bacon, see below)

120ml strong brewed coffee (how strong you want it to be is up to you, I actually used 2 tbsp of instant espresso)

Water if the jam is too dry during simmering
Alcohol (optional, maybe during festive seasons)

You have to cut the bacon into thin slices and cooked them over medium high heat until the fat is rendered and the bacon bits are brown and crisp. Do not over-cook them at this stage or you will get very tough bits.

Half-way through, there will be a lot of liquid released by the bacon. Drain it out to reduce the saltiness. You can always add some of the fluid back later on. If there is a lot of oil released when the bacon is crisp, you can drain it into a separate bowl as well in case you want to add back some at a later stage. Because we used half bacon back and half streaky bacon, it wasn't that oily.

Sliced bacon in frying pan

Once the bacon is crisp and you can add in the aromatics (garlic, shallot and onion). Cook using medium heat until the aromatics are softened. During this time, you can mix the brown sugar, maple syrup, vinegar, Dijon mustard and Worcestershire sauce in a bowl and stir to mix.

Cooking the bacon with the aromatics

We had to transfer the contents into a HappyCall pot since it is bigger than our frying pan and is non-sticky as well.

Once the aromatics are softened, pour in the prepared sauce and mix.

Add in black pepper and the salty liquid collected previously. Adjust according to your taste and preference.

Pour in the coffee once you are satisfied. Bring the whole mixture to a boil then reduce the heat to simmer. Cover the pot with a lid to prevent it from drying up too fast. Stir occasionally. You can use a slow cooker at this stage. If the mixture is too dry, don't add any more of the salty liquid or you might end up making it too salty. You can add some water and continue simmering. We simmered ours for about 4 hours. During that time, we were making macarons, so it wasn't that boring. ;)

Once that is done, off the heat and let it cool down before using a blender to blend it. Before blending, if you find the bacon jam not oily enough, you can add in the oil you collected previously when you were frying the bacon.

You can decide on the consistency of the bacon jam. We prefer ours to have some bits and pieces in it so we only blended it slightly instead of blending it into a paste. If you like to drink it like a milkshake, then by all means, blend it at full speed for a few minutes. :p

Bacon jam with garnishing

I think our version looks nicer and tastes better than the cafe's version. But I may be bias.  :) 

The bigger bacon bits were added in just for the photo shoot. But you can actually fry up extra bacon bits and add them after the bacon jam has been blended. There is no hard and fast rules to this recipe.

Bacon jam to complement Eggs Benedict or is it the other way round? :)

Esther cooked up something just for the bacon jam photo shoot. I noticed the Eggs Benedict tasted even better with the bacon jam! She dressed it up so well that she managed to trick her sister into thinking that this photo came from a cafe. LOL!

During the festive seasons, instead of adding water to simmer, try using red wine. We will be doing that and will post how it taste after that.

PS. All things (good or bad) must come in moderation. Please don't eat this everyday and end up with a heart attack!