Posted by Italian food amazes me with its simplicity and amazing flavors. And when it comes to dessert…its not too difficult to guess that my favorite is Tiramisu. Four years ago I was fortunate to taste the best of Italian food in Rome. It was a beautiful trip, as we regaled by good food, friendly people, and great weather. I was soon finding a great amount of commonality between the Italian and Assamese people – the very laid back relaxed attitude. Both the culture knows the novelty of ‘nothingness’. You learn to savor life in each and every moment. This experience percolates to food as well.
Well, once in a while I do make tiramisu with coffee liqueur. But with my toddler around, who seems to be more curious about what’s on our plate than his. I decided to try an alcohol-free vegan version of this dessert. The magic ingredient in this recipe is date syrup. Yes, it’s a plant based sweetener and very healthy. Feel free to use agave or maple syrup if you don’t have date syrup. My main motive behind using date syrup was to get a darker color in the pumpkin cashew layer.
And as I decided to make tiramisu around Halloween last weekend, so couldn’t ignore the humble pumpkin. I just can’t get enough of pumpkin. They just don’t look pretty on your dinner table they taste divine too.
Vegan Tiramisu
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: Italian
Cooking Time: 15 minutes
Preparation Time: 2 hours
INGREDIENTS
Base Layer
Vegan sponge cake 1 crumbled/ cut with cookie cutter to fit your serving glass
Expresso – 1 cup
Middle Layer
Cashew – 80 g
Date Syrup – 3 tbsp
Pumpkin puree – 150 g
Ground Cinnamon – 1 tsp
Ground Ginger – 1/8 tsp
Ground Nutmeg – 1/8 tsp
Ground Cloves – 1/8 tsp
Top Layer
Coconut cream – 1 cup
Date Syrup – 3 tbsp
Vanilla extract – 1 tsp
Raw cocoa powder – for dusting
METHOD
- Soak the sponge cake slices in expresso and gently place them at the base of the service glasses
- Blend the cashew for 1-2 min to get a creamy consistency.
- Add in the date syrup, puree, coconut oil and the spices and blend again.
- Spoon this above cashew cream mixture over the sponge cake and refrigerate
- In the meantime, whisk the coconut cream, vanilla, and date syrup to get a thick whipping cream like consistency
- Spoon out this coconut cream over the cashew cream layer and refrigerate at least for an hour.
- Dust with raw cocoa powder just before serving.
Magic Ingredient 