Chai Spiced Tiramegsu (GF)

I love the idea of a real Tiramisu. But, I can't eat chocolate. Or coffee. So to be honest, I've never even had one. I have smelled many (sometimes not the most sociable request to ask across the dinner table) and they smell divine. I've not met anyone who hasn't like them, so a few years ago I decided to make a meg-friendly tiramisu. A tiraMegsu if you will.

The two flavours that I decided to combine were baileys and chai spices, and yesterday I made it for the first time since becoming gluten intolerant, and it still worked beautifully. Ordinarily I would use the traditional sponge finger biscuits as the base of the tiramisu, but wasn't able to procure any gluten free ones, so just used the best that I could find, which was a GF orange and vanilla cake.

Ingredients

Base layer
Sponge fingers or GF Cake - depending on whether you are GF or not. Stick with as plain as possible.

250ml Baileys liquer

250ml hot water

15g (8t) chai spices (I sometimes use the spices individually or if i'm being lazy, just use an instant mix)

Cream filling

2 eggs, separated

75g caster sugar

60ml more baileys, this time for the cream

400g marscapone cream cheese

Crushed nuts for the topping, I used hazelnuts, but often just whatever is around. 

Method

1. Prepare the base of your dish by lining the entire bottom with the cake/fingers. I was making individual tiramegsu's and as we didn't have anything better, I used the mini cheesecake tins. 

2. Combine the baileys, hot water and chai spices in a bowl with a pouring lip. 

3. Carefully pour half of the mixture over the base cake/fingers until they are all well coated. They should have enough liquid on them to soak all the way through but not be too much to be dripping at the bottom. 

4. Meanwhile, start on the cream filling. Beat together the egg yolks, sugar and 60ml of baileys. Beat for a few minutes until pale gold. 

5. Gradually add the marscapone to the egg mix, bit by bit until smooth and creamy. 

6. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. 

7. Gently fold the egg whites into the marscapone mixture until well combined.

8. Spoon the cream over the cake/fingers until an even layer. 

9. Repeat the cake/finger and cream layering until you have reached the top of the dish you have used. 

10. Sprinkle crushed nuts with a little more chai spices on top of the tiramegsu and place it in the fridge for as many hours as you can, about 6 hours would be the best to allow the baileys and spices to really soak into the cake/fingers. 

So if you too are gluten intolerant and allergic to chocolate and coffee (would there be two of us out there?) then this is a delicious take on a classic dessert. Not especially healthy, but a lovely treat to indulge in all the same.