Simple Irish Cream Tiramisu

This recipe was published this week on the Israeli news website Ynet.
It's a delicious and elegant dessert that is very easy to make. You can make it in individual serving glasses, as I did below. You can also just make it in one large dish, if you prefer. The exact number of servings will depend on the size of dish you use and the way you choose to divide it.

I hesitated a bit before listing it as "easily gluten free". It is easy if you have access to gluten free ladyfingers, such as these excellent ones from Schar.  However, I think even if you don't have gluten free lady fingers, you can try to make this recipe with gluten free cookies, or even just make the cheese-cream mixture and serve it as a mousse. With regards to the Irish Cream, Bailey's has a somewhat ambiguous "gluten free" statement, but other companies (like Carolan's) are clearer about their claims.  You can also use an alternative such as Kahlua.

Simple Irish Cream Tiramisu 

Ingredients (for 5-10 portions, depending on container size): 

- 1 cup of strong coffee, at room temperature (you can make this in a coffee maker or combine 2 heaped tsp of instant coffee with one cup of water) 

- about 10-20 ladyfingers, depending on the size of the serving dishes

- 2 (225 gram) packs of mascarpone cheese (if you can't get mascarpone you can use another high-fat cream cheese, but mascarpone is best for this) 

- 1 cup (about 250 ml) whipping cream or heavy cream 

- 1/2 cup sugar 

- 1/4 cup Irish cream liqueur

- 2 tsp of cocoa powder 

Preparation: 

1. Place the coffee in a medium bowl (so that you can dip the ladyfingers in it) 

2. In a large bowl combine the mascarpone and the sugar. Add the Irish cream and mix well (the mixture will be quite liquid). 

3. Using a mixer, whip the cream into a sturdy whipped cream. Gently fold the whipped cream into the cheese mixture. 

4. Build the dish: dip the ladyfingers in the coffee and place at the bottom of the serving dishes (if you are using small dishes you may want to break them in half). Cover the ladyfingers with the cheese and cream mixture until about half the height of the serving dish. Add another layer of coffee-dipped ladyfingers. Cover with more cream mixture.  If you are using small serving dishes, repeat this for all of them.

5. Sprinkle the dish with cocoa powder (the easiest way to do this is to put a bit of cocoa in a fine sieve). Refrigerate for at least 2 hours (preferably overnight).