Strawberry Tiramisu

This needs to be made a day in advance.

1. Prepare the strawberries. For the coulis, wash and husk two of the punnets of strawberries, put into a pan with a 4 tbs of sugar and ¼ cup of water. Heat to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Blend the coulis and place in a sieve lined with muslin. Allow the juice to drip through overnight. For the strawberry layers, wash and husk one of the punnets, slice each strawberry into 3 or 4 slices, put into a bowl and mix with 1tbs of sugar. Place this in the fridge to macerate overnight. Keep the remaining punnet in the fridge to decorate the top of the tiramisu when ready to serve.
2. The following day make the cream mixture. Beat the sugar and egg yolks for 5 minutes until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl beat the mascarpone until smooth – add the cream and continue to beat. At first let the beaters beat the cream without adding all the mascarpone. Then beat together until the mixture is thick.
3. Add the Marsala and the vanilla to the cream mix along with the egg and sugar mix, stir to combine thoroughly.
4. Pour about a quarter of the cream mix on the bottom of a 2ocm x 28cm dish.
5. Place the strawberry juice in a shallow bowl, reserve the pulp. Add the lemon juice and mix. Take the sliced strawberries from the fridge and pour any macerating liquid into the juice. Then take ¼ cup of pulp and add to the sliced strawberries and mix gently.
6. Dip the biscuits individually in the juice – allowing then to absorb the liquid on the outside layer of the biscuit. (They resist at first, but will quickly absorb too much liquid if left for more than 30 seconds.)
7. Arrange the biscuits neatly on top of the cream. Then take half the strawberries, use your hands, allow the excess coulis to drip-off and then scatter the strawberries over the biscuits.
8. Pour a third of the remaining cream mixture over the strawberries and biscuits.
9. Make another layer of biscuits, strawberries and cream. (Pour the excess coulis into the strawberry pulp.)
10. Finish with a layer of biscuits and then cream. Place the tiramisu in the fridge to settle and chill for 4 hours. combine the remaining juice with the coulis and pulp, stir to make a strawberry sauce and reserve.
11. When ready to serve. Wash, husk and dry the remaining strawberries and place on top to decorate. Serve with the strawberry sauce – or save for another day to pour over vanilla ice cream.

I have made this twice this year. The first used the principle of dipping Savoiardi biscuits in a simple coulis of macerated strawberries and sugar. The cream mixture was made using whipped double cream. In between the layers I mixed about a quarter of bought custard to a volume of cream. On the top I used whipped cream. The problem with this method is that the strawberry coulis is far more viscous than the coffee used in a traditional tiramisu and does not soak into the biscuits. So I poured extra coulis over the biscuits hoping for absorption overnight. The end result was certainly delicious, but rather resembled a refined trifle. The second version (above) used lighter pavesini biscuits (from Italian delicatessens) dipped in a strawberry juice strained from a coulis. The cream mixture uses mascarpone and egg yolks as per usual. The result is just like a tiramisu. It is also a real ‘pick-me-up’ as it also gives the same buzz as the coffee version. I found the pavesini biscuits make a much lighter pudding – but they lack the structural backbone of a Savoiardi. You could build with less cream in the layers and add an extra biscuit layer.