This coffee tres leches Tiramisu is the love baby of my two favourite desserts. It’s more wonderful than you can ever imagine and I’m sure it will turn into your favourite dessert in the whole world.
This coffee tres leches with a tiramisu layer on top is really the best thing that’s happened to me this year (I know it’s January, but it will be hard to top). The base is a drenched coffee tres leches, with a lovely sweet taste. On top, a really delicate tiramisú cream which is just so good. Every bite is just amazing! Check out these versions as well:
Look at that texture! It can be a bit tricky to serve because the top is not too firm (in a regular tiramisu the ladyfingers give it more structure) but I promise it’s so good you won’t care. I want to tell you about what happened when friends of mine tried this coffee tres leches tiramisu, The first one to try it was my production assistant, Vale. She says she doesn’t like coffee in desserts, but she loved it! It’s because the flavours are really well balanced. Then, I had a couple of friends over for dinner and this was dessert for that. To be fair, it was excessive to bring out dessert because they were very full. However, I needed help eating this dessert so I wouldn’t eat it by myself, LOL! So I served a small portion to everyone. A few minutes later they were having more… and this happened twice more.
Ingredients
For the coffee tres leches sponge cake
- 2 eggs
- 140 g sugar
- 40 g evaporated milk
- ¼ tsp vanilla extract or essence
- 100 g all-purpose flour
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ¾ tsp salt
- 2 tbsp instant coffee, ground
For the tres leches
- 260 g evaporated milk
- 280 g condensed milk
- 210 g whipping cream col
For the tiramisu
- 2 egg yolks
- 60 g sugar
- 500 g mascarpone cheese cold
- 200 g whipping cream cold
- 2 tbsp cacao or cocoa powder
Instructions
For the coffee tres leches sponge cake
- Beat the eggs with the sugar at high speed until you reach ribbon stage. This is when you use the whisk to draw with the batter on top of itself. The drawing should stay a couple of seconds on top of the batter before incorporating back into it.
- Add the evaporated milk and vanilla and incorporate them using folding motions with a spatula.
- Mix the flour, coffee, salt and baking powder and add the mix onto the eggs through a sieve/colander. Use folding motions with a spatula to incorporate them. Be careful to get the flour that sinks to the bottom of the bowl. It tends to hide there and then you find out it's there when you pour the batter into the pan.
- Pour the batter onto a 20x20cm / 8x8in pan and bake in a preheated oven at 180°C/350°F for 20-25min or until you can insert a knife or skewer and it comes out clean.
For the tres leches
- Before removing the pan from the oven, mix the three milks in a bowl.
- AS SOON as the sponge cake comes out of the oven, pour the mixture on top and let it absorb everything on its own. Let it cool down completely (this is important) before making the tiramisu top.
For the tiramisú
- Prepare a bain-marie by adding a bit of water to a small pot/saucepan and placing a bowl on top. Make sure that the water isn't touching the base of the bowl. Place the pot over medium heat and let it come to a simmer.
- While the water heats up, remove the bowl from on top of it and add the egg yolks and sugar.
- Place the bowl onto the pot again and reduce the temperature to low while whisking constantly with a metal whisk. Keep whisking until it becomes pale and thickens to ribbon stage. It's similar to what we do for a hollandaise sauce. Be careful that the temperature isn't too high so as to scramble the egg yolks. If you feel that it's heating up too much, remove the bowl from the heat and whisk very quickly to cool it down. If your mix still has sugar granules when you're done, don't worry, they will dissolve when refrigerated.
- Transfer the mix to another bowl to cool it down quicker. Wair for it to cool down to room temperature completely (it's important), it should take about 10 minutes.
- Whip the cream and mascarpone cheese at low speed to get them incorporated. When this happens, increase the speed to medium and beat them until it thickens. Be careful not to curdle it, don't take your eyes off of it.
- Add about ¼ of the mascarpone to the yolks and fold them together with a spatula. Add this new mix back to the mascarpone and mix everything using folding motions with a spatula.
- Pour the mix onto the tres leches base.
- Dust the top with cacao powder and refrigerate for at least 8 hours or ideally 24 hours.
- Cut the dessert in 6 and serve.
