Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Cake contest

In a recent article [display], I mentioned my first steps in the preparation of the Italian cake called tiramisù. My daughter and I had planned that one of the highlights of her Xmas excursion to Gamone would be a tiramisù contest, with each of us producing a specimen of our current skills in this creative domain. My cake was classic, and Emmanuelle was kind enough to give me good marks. But my daughter's tiramisù blew me out of the contest.

Basically, it was [past tense of the verb to be] a multi-layered specimen of plain mascarpone and egg cream with interspersed raspberries, both solid and mashed. I was startled to discover that my daughter adheres to a puristic tiramisù school whose elitist members don't dunk the biscuits in coffee, and don't even sprinkle cocoa on the surface of their creations. Besides, when I asked Emmanuelle if she needed my bottle of Sicilian Marsala wine, she declined my offer with a polite sneer of the kind that no doubt characterizes senior members of the caste of tiramisù creators. In any case, motivated rather than discouraged by the shock of this contest, I'm determined to continue my research in this field. I have a vision of a tiramisù that incorporates a natural product from Gamone: walnuts. Maybe it's too early to let the cat out of the bag, and maybe I'm dreaming, but I've even been wondering whether it might not be possible to produce my own walnut-based biscuits for an ethereal tiramisù of a totally revolutionary kind.

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