The Pioneer Woman's Decadent Tiramisu Cake Uses Two Ingredient Swaps To Keep Things Easy
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The first time we tasted tiramisu, we couldn’t believe we’d gone so long without it in our lives. The first time we tried making tiramisu, on the other hand? Yeah, we suddenly understood why it wasn’t in our family’s regular rotation of desserts growing up. That’s because traditional tiramisu isn’t just made with a complicated creamy custard filling, but it also calls for ingredients that aren’t always easy to find in an American grocery store. If you live in somewhere like, let’s say…Pawhuska, Oklahoma, you might not be able to get mascarpone cheese or Italian ladyfinger cookies at the store. So what does Pawhuska resident and Food Network celebrity Ree Drummond, also known as The Pioneer Woman, do? The author of The Pioneer Woman Cooks―A Year of Holidays has made some simple swaps so this recipe can be made with more commonly found ingredients.
One of the swaps Drummond makes is switching out the Italian ladyfinger cookies, also known as Savoiardi. The cookies are slightly crunchy with a bit of a meringue-like chew, but it can be really hard to find them in a typical American grocery store. That’s why, instead of ladyfinger cookies, Drummond makes this tiramisu with frozen pound cake (you can use fresh pound cake, too, if that’s what your store sells). The cake is cut into three horizontal slices, so it can be drizzled with strong, sweetened coffee and then layered with the creamy tiramisu filling.
The filling is where Drummond makes another clever swap. Rather than using mascarpone cheese, which is both hard to find and expensive, she calls for softened cream cheese. It’s mixed with powdered sugar, vanilla bean paste, and heavy cream, until a fluffy, dreamy filling is ready to be piped onto the cake layers. Last but not least, semisweet baking chocolate is grated onto each layer, before the whole tiramisu cake is placed in the fridge to rest.
The end result is a creamy, cakey, cocoa-and-coffee kissed dessert that tastes just like your favorite tiramisu, only made with ingredients you can actually find at the grocery store, and that won’t cost and arm and a leg. It’s the Pioneer Woman at her best.
Before you go, check out these Ina Garten-Approved holiday gift ideas:
Watch: Peppermint Bark Is the Perfect Holiday Gift That You Can Make Right at Home