Tiramisù is a coffee-flavoured sponge cake that is a take on trifle.
In the range of Italian desserts, it is classified as a semi-freddo
It is a layered dessert, made from chocolate, espresso, mascarpone cheese and pan di spagna.
It is topped with whipped cream, dusted with cocoa powder and ground cinnamon, and sprinkled with grated chocolate.
Later versions started using ladyfingers as a shortcut instead of the spongecake (Pan di Spagna.)
You soak the pieces of sponge cake or ladyfingers in slightly sweetened espresso, and then make a make a layer of them in a dish.
You cover this layer with a zabaglione/mascarpone mixture, then make a second layer of the soaked cake or ladyfingers, then another layer of the zabaglione/mascarpone mixture.
Dust the top with cocoa powder.
Tiramisù needs to be eaten relatively soon after being assembled, but refrigerate at least 4 hours before serving.
History Notes
Tiramisù appeared in the late 1960s, early 1970s.
Many food writers trace its origin to 1968, in Treviso northwest of Venice, Veneto region of Italy.
Some say it was created at the El Toula restaurant. Others, such as writers Fernando e Tina Raris (see Literature section below) plump for it originating at a restaurant named “Le Beccherie” in Piazza Ancilotto, Treviso, owned by Alba and Ado Campeol. They also run a hotel on the other side of the Piazza called “Campeol”; the family has run the restaurant since 1939. The “Le Beccherie” restaurant uses ladyfingers (savoiardi) soaked in strong espresso, mascarpone mixed with zabaglione with Marsala in it, and bitter cocoa powder.
Tiramisù was very popular throughout the Western World by the 1980s. By the 1990s, though, it was considered tired — it started even to be sold frozen in supermarkets.
Literature & Lore
Questo dolce di “credenza” è un vanto della ristorazione trevigiana; ha raggiunto notevole successo anche per il suo accattivante nome dialettale.
La paternità del nome è attribuita ad Alba e Ado Campeol del Ristorante “Beccherie” di Treviso e così fu chiamato quando il cuoco pasticcere Roberto Linguanotto lo allestì per la prima volta negli anni Sessanta come una zuppa inglese.
Giuseppe Maffioli ricorda la circostanza in un articolo pubblicato sulla rivista “Vin Veneto” del 1981: “È nato recentemente, poco più di due lustri orsono un dessert nella città di Treviso, il ‘Tirame su’ che fu proposto per la prima volta nel ristorante ‘Beccherie’…; il dolce e il suo nome divennero immediatamente popolarissimi e ripresi, con assoluta fedeltà o con qualche variante non solo nei ristoranti di Treviso e provincia ma anche in tutto il grande Veneto ed oltre, in tutta Italia”. Ancor oggi il ristorante lo confeziona nella stessa maniera con savoiardi bagnati nel caff è ristretto, legati tra loro con mascarpone montato con uova sbattute.
L’indovinato nome, tratto dal verbo dialettale “tirarse su'”, esprime l’azione del rimettersi, del recuperare le forze; modo di dire che suscita immediata simpatia sottolineando i pregi di questo dolce piacevole, stimolante, sostanzioso.
Il “Tirame su'” ha raggiunto rinomanza internazionale; Alba ed Ado Campeol si rammaricano di non averne brevettato il nome e la ricetta per evitare il fiorire di diverse storie sulla sua origine e il diffondersi di ricette che non hanno nulla da spartire con il loro dolce. Il nome è stato italianizzato in “Tiramisu'”…This sideboard showpiece is one of the claims to fame of the restaurant trade in Treviso. It has achieved notable success despite its remarkable dialect name.
The origin of the name is attributed to Alba and Ado Campeol of the Beccherie Restaurant in Treviso and was called that when the pastry cook Roberto Linguanotto assembled it for the first time in the 1960s as a sort of “zuppa inglese”.
Giuseppe Maffioli recalls the circumstances in a 1981 article published in the magazine “Vin Veneto”: “A desert has been born in the city of Treviso recently, a little more than two years ago — Tirame su, which was put together for the first time by in the Beccherie restaurant… the dessert and its name became immediately popular and imitated, both identically and with variations, in the restaurants of Treviso the city, in the province, in the entire region of Veneto and beyond that in all of Italy.” Even today the restaurant makes it in the same way with savoiardi soaked in strong coffee, bound together with mascarpone mixed with beaten egg.
The name, coming from the local dialect of “tirarse su”, expresses the action of pulling yourself together, of recovering your energy, an expression that causes immediate interest, emphasizing the graces of these pleasing, stimulating and substantial dessert.
Tirame su achieved international reknown. Alba and Ado Campeol regret not having patented the name or the recipe, which would have avoided confusion about the dessert’s origin and the spread of recipes under the Tiramisu name that bear no resemblance to the original dessert. The name was Italianized (from dialect) to “Tiramisu”…”
— Raris, Fernando e Tina. La Marca gastronomica: Amore e nostalgia per la cucina e i vini della tradizione trevigiana. Treviso: Canova. 1998.
Language Notes
“Tiramisu” (“tira” meaning “pick”, verb “tirare”; “mi” meaning “me”; “su” meaning “up”) means “pick me up.”