Galway Irish Coffee Tiramisu

What is this now? Tiramisu again? Hm … yes, why not!

The Scottish Whisky Cake went down well. I guess I had too much whisky then, or not enough? Whatsoever, one leads to another. All this and fantasising together with some workmates (who enjoyed most of the cake) about what else to do with whisky, the Irish coffee tiramisu came up.

Good then I had all the desired ingredients at home! How about the name?

I was limping between Galway Irish Coffee Tiramisu and Killarney Irish Coffee Tiramisu. Apart from Dublin, lush green fields and hills and sheep, these are the places come to my mind when thinking about Ireland. Although staying only brief, these towns stayed in my mind. By the way, there is a nice hotel across the road near Muckross House.

Is maith liom Gaillihm. Galway, the largest city on the west coast of Ireland, is a lovely place. Sometimes it is called the gateway to the rough west of Ireland. From here it’s not far to the Cliffs of Moher and Connemara is also around. 

It's not too far to the Burren national park either. What about a Burren decoration for the tiramisu ... a rough one? Na, I don't know.

You like castles or other ruins? Dunguaire Castle.

Or just cruising along the coast ...

... whatever ...

... time would be missing, if I would start to bubble over with explanations and memories from Ireland. There is some good music coming from Ireland, too, though.

Anyway, we are going to have some Galway Irish Coffee Tiramisu, and you are not going to regret it. I didn’t! After all we are not doing a Guinness Tiramisu (imagine that – or better not).

Let’s leave those old ruins alone and let the sheep graze alone on their meadows …

Tar isteach! Suigh sios!

Ingredients:

200 g shortbread fingers (no worries, if you feel it’s rather Scottish)

250 g mascarpone (which would be rather Italian)

150 g double cream

100 ml sweetened hot coffee (maybe two teaspoons of sugar)

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

4 more teaspoons of sugar

4 cl of Irish whisky (here we go)

Cocoa powder or grated chocolate (enough – ha ha ha)

Method (more or less):

Good! I hope, I didn’t forget to mention anything. Ah, you won’t notice anyway, if I add it afterwards (it’s not really live blogging now).

Have a medium sized bowl ready (about 20 x 20 cm or a bit smaller). Ha, when a square bowl would be better, I’m using a round one, and the other way around. What’s wrong with me?

Let’s go on! Line the base of your bowl with the shortbread. If your bowl is too small, you have to start a second layer or simply it up the leftover shortbread fingers.

Mix half of the whisky into your coffee and pour it  over the fingers (not yours, but the shortbread ones) get soaked. In the first go, I used the double amount of coffee. This didn’t look right.

Leave the shortbread fingers enough time to drink up as much of the coffee as possible. Use that time to whisk together the mascarpone, double cream, vanilla extract, sugar, and the remaining whisky. Should it still be too thick, I fear, you have to use a bit more whisky.

Said and done! Now you have to spoon this cream over the soaked shortbread fingers. However, if you like some extra chocolate kick (why shouldn't you?), you can grate some chocolate over here before you add the cream. I hope for you, it works well. I managed somehow, more or less – still suffering from too much coffee in the bowl.

Then you can ice the tiramisu with enough cocoa powder. According to your mood you can try to have it decorated with putting “things” on the tiramisu before icing. I tried it.

Place the finished (or nearly finished) tiramisu to your fridge and let it cool down a bit. Afterwards, a lot of self-discipline, was needed not to finish the whole bowl all by myself. The buttery taste of the shortbread … yum … the push of the coffee … yum … and the fragrant hint of the whisky … delish! Well, you have to taste it yourself – again – to get a full picture of the taste.

But beware, as you may know that mascarpone is high in fat, as is double cream. No worries!

You may see a bodhrán in the background of the picture, however, this doesn't mean I know how to play it well. Then there might be something else, you recognize on here (no, I don't mean the clover-like decoration on the tiramisu). 

On the bohrán you can spot a Claddagh symbol. The significance of this you can find out for yourself. Somehow, I placed it in the picture in a way, showing, that I very much like this tiramisu. Moreover, this Claddagh symbol has a romantic background, but what do I know about these things!

Slán agat!

Scottish Whisky Cake for Best of British

Fàilte! Ciamar a tha sibh?

That’s Scottish Gaelic and means: Welcome! How are you?

Well, I really, from the heart, hope you are doing well!!!

Some ten years ago, let’s say, 15 years ago, or wait, I can’t get it correct right this minute. So, somewhere in between that time, a good friend of mine got married (I don’t need to remember his wedding date. He does and he gets in trouble if he doesn’t.).

As it comes at the wedding reception, as his friend, I had to do something to entertain the masses, OK, the bride, the groom, and the guests. Somehow I had or found or whatever this sketch, this comedy thingy. Did I tell this story before? Can’t remember either! Right, but it fits NOW!

Good! This sketch was about this man demonstrating how to bake a Scottish whisky cake, of course involving a lot of whisky. I think a whole bottle was necessary.

It goes like:

First of all check the quality of the whisky [drinking a glass of whisky]. Cream the sugar together with the butter. Check again, whether the whisky is still good [drinking a glass of whisky]. We-ell, add the eeeeeeggs [slurring the words already]. … OK, you have about a feel on how it went until the whole bottle of whisky is gone.

The only thing you need to remember now is: DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME!

Just follow the instructions below for preparing this cake.

I enter this post to the Best of British Challenge for July, which is themed Scotland's food. More info you find as well with Janice at Farmersgirl Kitchen and at The Face of New World Appliances and at London Unattached from Fiona.

Scottish Whisky Cake

Ingredients

For the cake batter:

250 g of butter (Gaelic: im) at room temperature

250 g of sugar (Gaelic: siùcar)

4 eggs (Gaelic: ugh)

500 g spelt flour (or 200 g + 300 g wheat flour)

15 g of baking powder

15 g vanilla extract or vanilla sugar

2 cl Sottish whisky

200 ml milk (Gaelic: bainne)

60 g white chocolate

60 g dark chocolate

For the icing:

160 g icing sugar

60 g butter at room temperature
2 tsps of honey

Juice of one lemon

2 cl Scottish whisky

Some roasted and shredded hazelnuts for decoration

Method:

Here we go. As I said you can of course skip all the whisky tasting part!

Have a round, let’s say 25 cm (±5 cm tolerance) baking tin form, prepared with butter for non stick ready to go and heat the oven up to 175°C.

Cream the sugar together with the butter. Add the four eggs (we don’t bother today with all these separating and whisking egg white and so forth). Simply whisk it together.

Sieve in the flour with the baking powder.

Before I go on talking to much, add the vanilla extract or sugar (whichever you are using), the whisky, and the milk. Well, mix well! Break the chocolate in pieces of the desired size. I like them rather more chunky. So that’s what I did then. Fold the pieces in.

Get the cake batter to the baking tin form and chuck, oops, put it gently in the middle of the oven and bake for one hour.

In between, do whatever you like. Whatever you can do with one hour. There are a lot of things, of course depending on what you like. You could use the time to clean up the mess you created by now. You could have a meal (even including preparation – depending on what you do of course). Whatever! It’s up to you and I’m not going to tell you what I did.

Once the cake is ready, remove it from the oven and let cool down for a while.

It’s time to think about the icing. Beat it all together. Give your best and make sure you don’t have any chunks of icing sugar sticking together (I forgot to think about it, no worries, though).

Let the icing flow over the cake, let the forces of nature have it’s work complete. If you feel like it, you can spread over the pieces of hazelnuts.

Even my dog, Lucy, had her part as she dressed up in her little Scottish dress for this challenge. Well, OK, right, was dressed up!

While talking about fitting music (see comments below) ... here a nice little addition I found on YouTube: