Tiramisu is an Italian dessert made with coffee-soaked ladyfingers (savoiardi) covered with a cream of egg yolks, sugar, mascarpone, and cocoa powder. It originated in northeastern Italy, and modern versions were popularized in restaurants from the late 1960s. It has become one of the most internationally recognised Italian desserts and has inspired many variations in home and professional cooking. The name comes from the Italian phrase tirami su, meaning 'pick me up' or 'cheer me up'.
Origins and history
The exact place and date of its invention are unclear, though it is generally placed in the late 1960s or early 1970s. The restaurant Le Beccherie in Treviso credits its pastry chef, Roberto Linguanotto, with creating the dessert, and it was added to the menu in 1972. Other accounts link it to older desserts such as sbatudin, dolce Torino, and zuppa inglese, and some legends are not supported by documentary evidence. The recipe does not appear in cookbooks before the 1960s, and it was first mentioned in a 1978 Sydney Morning Herald restaurant column.
Ingredients and variations
Traditional tiramisu uses ladyfingers, egg yolks, sugar, coffee, mascarpone, and cocoa powder, and most of these components were already common in Italian home cooking. Mascarpone is the more recent element, as the stabilised modern version became widely available in northern Italy only in the early 20th century. Common variations add alcohol such as Marsala or amaretto to the coffee, replace the coffee with flavours like strawberry or lemon, or use other cakes such as panettone in place of the biscuits.