Mango and Passionfruit Tiramisu

Tuscany Now, an Italian villa rental specialist, invited me to take part in a cookery competition to create an Italian-inspired dish, the #TuscanyNowCookOff. I immediately thought of tiramisu but wanted to put my own twist on it, so came up with this mango and passionfruit tiramisu, which was absolutely delicious. It's also really easy and would be the perfect dessert to make while staying in a Tuscany villa... well, I can dream!


To serve 6-8 (depending on portion size) you need:

200g pack sponge fingers
100ml orange juice
80ml passion fruit syrup (I used Funkin Syrup, which I bought online)
250g mascarpone cheese
125ml fat-free plain yogurt
1 egg
50g caster sugar
1 mango, thinly sliced (or use tinned sliced mango)
2 passionfruit

Combine the orange juice and 50ml of the passion fruit syrup in a shallow bowl and dip the sponge fingers one at a time in the liquid, turning to cover both sides.

Layer half the sponge fingers in the bottom of a large serving dish.

In another bowl beat the mascarpone, yogurt, and 30ml of the passionfruit syrup. Then beat in the caster sugar and egg until well combined.

Spoon half the mixture over the sponge fingers.

Lay the mango slices on top to form the next layer.

Scoop out the middle of the two passionfruit and combine with the rest of the mascarpone mixture.

Place another layer of sponge fingers in the bowl then top it off with the mascarpone and passionfruit mixture.

Place in the fridge for at least one hour or overnight. Return to room temperature before serving.

 You can serve it straight from the dish...

... or use a pastry cutter to cut out a circle of the tiramisu as I did here. You can see all the different layers inside!

 I also drizzled a little passion fruit syrup around the tiramisu and served two more slices of mango on the side.

This dessert is absolutely delicious; rich and creamy but the fresh fruit flavours are perfect for summer. The passion fruit seeds give a satisfying crunch on top. Using the fat-free plain yogurt instead of the more traditional double cream makes the dessert a little lighter in calories and would suit glamourous Italians who like to look after their figure! I think this is as good as any traditional tiramisu I've had in a restaurant, but I've never come across one this flavour before.

Food From Fiction- Revenge: Chocolate Mousse with Chambord Black Raspberry Liqueur with Bols Foam

I generally don't pay much attention to the brands that sponsor television shows these days but one keeps grabbing me. My Monday night ritual is coming home from my choir rehearsal and settling onto the sofa just in time to watch Revenge. It's cheesy and trashy and has that sort of Dynasty-glitz about it, but I love it. The show is sponsored by Chambord black raspberry liqueur, which I'd never heard of before, but the advert is genius - the purring voiceover wouldn't sound amiss coming from Victoria Grayson as the female voice suggests "take pleasure in the delicious darkness of revenge, sponsored by Chambord French black raspberry liqueur."

When I came across a recipe for another Food from Fiction post I wanted to make, which required raspberry liqueur, I decided this was a great excuse to buy a bottle of Chambord. It's not cheap - about £20 for 70cl - but comes in a very ornate round bottle complete with a recipe leaflet full of cocktail ideas. I'll definitely be trying out one or two of them!

There's something about Revenge, with its decadence, luxurious lifestyles and dark secrets that made me think of chocolate mousse - and with a kick of black raspberry liqueur I think this dessert would be perfect for Emily Thorne.

I got the basic chocolate mousse recipe and an idea to use sponge fingers from Josie's Kitchen but also adapted the recipe and the way the dessert is served it to fit another idea I'd had. Check out the way Josie has made hers with fresh raspberries though (something I don't like) - it looks great.

These quantities serve two but make a relatively small portion.
For the mousse you need:100g dark chocolate
1 egg, separated
1 tsp vanilla flavouring
1 tbsp granulated sugar
1/2 cup whipping cream
2 tbsp Chambord black raspberry liqueur

To assemble you need:
3 or 4 sponge fingers
2 tbsp Chambord black raspberry liqueur
Bols Foam - cassis flavour. Read on for an explanation...

Whisk together the egg yolk, vanilla flavouring and sugar

 Melt the chocolate in the microwave or a bain marie

 Stir in the cream

 Next stir in the egg yolk mixture. At this point I was starting to think I should have used a bigger bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg white until stiff

Fold in to the chocolate mixture - I added the chocolate to the egg white rather than the other way round as the egg was in a much bigger bowl.

You end up with a lovely glossy chocolate mousse

Here's the Chambord black raspberry liqueur, which I hadn't tried before but now I'm a big fan! (No this is not a sponsored post....)

Add a dash or 2 tbsp of the liqueur to the chocolate mousse.

Break up the sponge fingers in the bottom of two individual serving dishes. Pour 1 tbsp raspberry liqueur into each dish and leave the sponge fingers to soak for a few minutes.

Spoon the chocolate mixture on top. This is when I decided I should have used smaller serving dishes or doubled the recipe!

Now for something a bit different. I ordered my bottle of Chambord from an online drinks distributor (as I couldn't find it in my local supermarkets as they are quite small shops). While I was on the website, I noticed this:

I've bought Bols products several times in the past, as they make some nice flavoured liqueurs and triple sec and so on that are good for cocktails. This is something new I hadn't come across before - a liqueur that turns into a foam!

The box comes with a small-ish bottle of Bols - I chose cassis flavour as that was the closest they had to raspberry - and a small pump.

Simply open the bottle, screw in the pump and you're good to go. The website shows the foam being served on the top of a cocktail which I think looks quite fun, but in this case I decided it would be the perfect finishing touch for my dessert.

Just give the  bottle a couple of pumps and the foam comes out - here you can see it sitting on top of the chocolate mousse. It gave a very unusual and I think enjoyable topping to the dessert and the flavours worked really well together. You can taste the alcohol in the foam as well which is fun!

My obsession with Revenge also ties in nicely with this month's Baking with Spirit, hosted by Janine at Cake of the Week, as the ingredient this month is raspberry liqueur.