Best Tiramisu Cake - An Authentic Italian Recipe | Two Sisters Living Life (2024)

This is the BEST Tiramisu recipe you will ever find. It’s authentic, creamy and oh so delicious. And since Im going to show you how you put everything together to such a beautiful cake its a total show stopper for every special occasion well.

Italy is for most Austrians their second home. Especially for those who live not too far away from the Italian border like us. We Austrians truly love our Italian Neighbours. We love them not only for the sea and the beaches but likewise for their pasta, wine, pizza, “cappuccinis” and of course there “dolce” which means dessert.

In my opinion the most famous Italian dessert is the Tiramisu. With its rich velvet cream and the ladyfingers infused with coffee and some good dessert wine or rum and the thick layer of powdered cacao its for many a dessert dream come true 😉

The meaning of the word Tiramisu!

What very few people know is that Tiramisu means : Pull Me Up! A long time ago the tiramisu was often served after very rich dinners with a lot of courses. As a result the strong espresso, in which the ladyfingers are dipped should help pull everybody up and out of there food coma 😉

I originally found this recipe for an authentic Italian tiramisu in an old Italian cook book at our parents house when I was about 24 years old. I think my mom bought this book when she was young married to our dad. Therefore this book was reeeally old 😉 as my kids would say.

Italian Tiramisu Cake and how to begin!

Foremost it is very important to have fresh eggs at hand. Since this recipe calls for raw eggs and they doesn’t get cooked or baked trough. The best and safest way is to get pasteurised raw eggs. But as it is you don’t get these in every country.

Now that we talked about the importance of extremely fresh eggs, let’s start with the recipe.

First we need to separate the eggs. After separating we mix the egg whites and the sugar until its very glossy and shiny and stiff peaks form.

Then take the egg yolks and mix them with the powdered sugar until its a very creamy pale yellow cream. Add the mascarpone cheese and one tablespoon of a good dessert wine or rum or if there are kids, rum flavour and mix it on medium speed until incorporated. But don’t overbeat the cream.

Now we fold in the egg whites with a spatula. Et voilá ready is your tiramisu cream :-)This is the best Tiramisu recipe ever. Its creamy, delicious, authentic and a total show stopper.

Assembling the Tiramisu Cake

If you don’t want your tiramisu to look like a cake, no problem just stack the lady fingers and the tiramisu cream in a normal baking form.

First we have to prepare your cake plate with a convertible cake ring. Or, if you don’t have one take the outer ring of a springform pan.

These are the springform pan and cake ring I use. For this recipe you will need a 24cm form which is about 9 inch.

After preparing your plate with the cake ring, take your espresso shots which you watered down a liiitle bit. You can use decaffeinated coffee as well if there are kids who will enjoy this dessert too. Unpack your ladyfinger and lay everything on your working surface.

I used thick ladyfingers for this recipe. If your ladyfingers are thin you may need to double the recipe.

Dip your ladyfingers with one flat side into the coffee and start assembling them on your plate. Leave about 2 cm space to the cake ring.

When you covered the inner cake ring space with soaked ladyfingers you’ll take 3 dry fingers and put them upright into the space between the soaked fingers and the springform cake ring, like small tin soldiers 😉 . Hold them like I do in the 3rd image and put some mascarpone cream onto the soaked ladyfingers and the inner bellow side of the dry fingers.

You more our less glue the soaked ones and the dry ones together with the mascarpone cream.

Upon fixing the first 3 tin soldiers take another 3 fingers and repeat the process until the outer ring is closed with ladyfingers.

As we should have closed the outer ring with ladysfingers and covered them with mascarpone cream, we continue with another layer of soaked fingers and more mascarpone for covering. We continue with the alternative layering until there is only 3 cm left to the top of the upright standing ladysfingers.

Finally put the rest of your mascarpone cream into a piping back with a 2cm round dip opening and pipe small dots onto the last layer of ladysfingers. Beginn from the outside to the inside as bellow on the pictures.

Put your finished cake into the fridge overnight or at least for 6 hours and sprinkle the top with cocoa powder before serving.

Important note: If you can’t find thick ladysfingers, please double your recipe for the mascarpone cream. If you have any cream left make small tiramisu in small water glasses.

I hope I’ve got you covered with your next party cake. Let’s surprise the crowd with my authentic beautiful Tiramisu Cake straight from the heart of Italy.

Sweet hugs Nina

Update: Tiramisu Cake festively decorated for Christmas.

If you like to make that cake for Christmas maybe you would like to decorate the Tiramisu cake a little more festive and christmas-y . I made some iced gingerbread cookies and used those cookies instead of the ladyfingers on the outside.

Did you make this wonderful cake? Tag @twosisterslivinglife. We absolutely want to see it!

You may also like my recipe for delicious healthy sweet potato gnocchis .

Nina

Nina is a mom of 2, a passionate photographer and kitchen scientist. She is a very creative and chaotic person, thats why she needs to organize her life very much to not get lost on her way 😉.