Black Cherry Tiramisu

Lazy pudding - I know you are but what am I?

This is pretty much the tiramisu element from my Cherr-amisu cake, but here I’ve just made it as a very low effort pudding. Because really, right now, it’s an effort to get off the sofa.

These quantities fill a 22cm square dish.

INGREDIENTS:

40 (approx)  Sponge Fingers / Lady Fingers / Boudoir Biscuits - about 1& 1/2 packets

Mascarpone Cream:

250g mascarpone

45g white granulated sugar

500g double cream

2 tbsp of almond liqueur or vanilla vodka - or more or less of whatever you fancy

Cherries:

900g defrosted cherries - whatever sort you can find, I used black / dark

3 tbsp cherry brandy or kirsch

3 tbsp cherry syrup - add sugar if you don’t have the syrup and cherries are too sour

juice of a lemon

HOW TO:

Cherries.

• Defrost the frozen cherries, I just leave them overnight, and then give them a light snipping with scissors to make smaller pieces and to get the juices flowing.

• Add, and the following ingredients are to taste, the booze and cherry syrup and enough lemon juice to sharpen the flavour, I like a lot. If you don’t have cherry syrup and the cherries are too sour just add a little sugar and stir.

Mascarpone Cream:

• Add the mascarpone, sugar and vanilla or liqueur to a large mixing bowl and mix to combine and loosen up with a spoon.

• Add the double cream and whip everything together with an electric whisk until it has thickened to soft folds.

Construction.

• For the first layer you’ll need 18 to 20 biscuits. Soak them 3 or four at a time in the cherry juice, I like to leave them in for about 30 seconds to absorb as much as possible and lay them as a single layer in the base of the dish.

• Spoon over half the cherries, hold back enough juice to dip the second layer of biscuits in.

• Dollop half the mascarpone cream over the fruit and level the surface.

• Soak the next 18/20 biscuits in the remaining cherry juice and layer them over the mascarpone.

• Cover with the rest of the fruit and leftover juice

• Spread over the remaining half of the mascarpone cream and level and dust gerenously with cocoa powder

• Chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours, but ideally overnight, so everything has a chance to soften and soak up the flavours.

• Serve on the sofa or take it to a party you actually made yourself get up and go to.

Tat x