Pumpkin Tiramisu

Thanksgiving is tomorrow! This might be one of the first times I'm not working or out of town and am actually looking forward to the holiday. Usually I'm all about skipping it to get straight to Christmas, not this year though! As I've gotten more and more into baking (blame the Great British Bakeoff for inspiring me), I decided that I would make an epic dessert. I love everything pumpkin unless it's pumpkin pie. That can be blamed on a Thanksgiving where I ate wayyyyy too much of it and haven't let go of the regret since. However, I love tiramisu and saw this recipe for one here and decided to do my own spin of it.

I had ladyfingers left over so being the child I am, I dipped one in the coffee mixture and then the cheese mixture and oh my god... I'm winning Thanksgiving for sure.

Before we start, let me just say that I'm not the most advanced baker (getting there) and tiramisu seems really complicated but this one was pretty easy and there's no baking involved. I also bought my Ladyfinger cookies and Mascarpone cheese from Trader Joes. Any excuse to shop there is a good excuse. For the Hazelnut Liquear, I used Kahula Hazelnut. I used more liqueur than the original recipe because duh, why wouldn't we?

I also had more than half a can of pumpkin left over which wasn't an issue because I used it to fill Kongs to freeze for the dogs. It's my go to trick for Mister I-Have-Seperation-Anxiety Murderface and works like a charm. Win win for everyone with this recipe I would say.

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Pumpkin Tiramisu Recipe

For Dipping
1 cup water
1 cup brewed coffee (I went to Starbucks and just got a tall black coffee for this)
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup Hazelnut Liqueur (The original recipe calls for 2/3 but I used 1 cup)

Mixture
2 cartons of Mascarpone cheese (8 oz each)
3/4 canned pumpkin
5 Tbsp divided sugar (3 tbsp and 2 tbsp)
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1 1/4 cups heaving whipping cream

Assembly
54 crisp ladyfinger cookies. (This didn't work for me, I ended up using about 66 ladyfingers for mine because of the pan I used. I believe I used about 4 or 5 boxes of the Trader Joe brand)
1 Tbsp sugar mixed with 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1. Start off with making the coffee liquid. Using a small saucepan over medium-low heat, combine water, coffee, sugar, and liqueur and stir until the sugar has dissolved. The original recipe says to move the liquid to a shallow bowl but I just kept it in the saucepan and moved it off the heat. No need to make another dirty dish if you can avoid it. Make sure the liquid cools completely.

2. In a large mixing bowl, mix Mascarpone cheese, pumpkin, 3 tbsp sugar, and all the spices till it's blended together. In another separate mixing bowl, add the heavy cream and beat it till it starts to thicken. Add the remaining 2 tbsp's of sugar and continue to beat the cream until "soft peaks form". I had no idea what that meant so basically I just kept beating it till it formed a much thicker version of what it seemed before. Fold the cream into the mascarpone/pumpkin mixture until it's all blended.

3. Now it's time to build your Tiramisu. Dip the ladyfingers into the coffee liquid  and allow excess to drip off. Be careful because these cookies are delicate and can break easily after they are soft. I used two rows of 10 ladyfingers for my pan as well as 3 more at the bottom because there's a gap left when you use the 9x13 pan as can be seen in the above picture. Make sure they are even and resting next to each other in a single layer. You'll have a lot of the cheese mixture to work with so spread an even layer over the cookies and then repeat the process again until you have built two more layers.

4. Sprinkle the combined sugar/cinnamon mixture over the top and voila... You have finished! All that's left is to cover your tiramisu and then stick it in the fridge. Leave in for at least 8 hours or overnight, I'm leaving mine in overnight.

I would have added a photo of a cut piece so you guys could see the layers but that will have to wait till tomorrow.

I'm so excited to see how my family likes it. A few already came by and sampled the cheese mixture and that seems to be good on it's own, so more than likely we will be getting some rave reviews. Let me know how it turns out for you if you try it!

Lavender Coffee Syrup

Ever since I saw Katie @ Skunkboy talk about getting amazing lavender iced coffees at a little place by her home, I became obsessed. I love coffee. I love lavender. The two together sound amazing! Unfortunately Las Vegas doesn't host any kind of place that makes such a thing which means Starbucks really needs to up their game here.... How are they not serving these already?

So it seems I would have to take matters into my own hands and try to make my own. I tried my own variation based on the following three recipes I found: here, here, & here.

I tried the first one to a T but I'm not a big fan of brown sugar and I had the wrong part of lavender since I had a really hard time finding the buds... So I scratched it and started again. I luckily came across the buds in a spice and tea store that had just opened up near by and I used white cane sugar instead of brown.

Lavender Coffee Syrup

1 cup water

1 tablespoon lavender buds

1 cup sugar (white or brown)

Combine all three ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a light simmer until the sugar is completely dissolved. Strain the buds out of the mixture and bottle it up!

It's really that easy but it takes some practice to find the level of lavender taste you want. The longer you cook it, the stronger the lavender taste will be and that sometimes means it might be a little soapy. Double the recipe to make more of it. I also suggest that usually this way comes out a lot more watery then syrupy. To fix that, go ahead and strain the buds out and then continue to reduce the mixture...Basically boil it down till it reaches a consistency you like.

I'm still trying to find the iced coffee mix I like the most.. I enjoy putting a little of it into my Starbucks though!

I found the syrup bottles for super cheap (like $2) at TJ Max. 

This syrup is good for more than just coffee. You can put it in a pound cake or sweeten tea with it. The possibilities are endless!

Let me know if you tried this recipe and any twerks you might have made to it... Or if you have an even better version then I would love to hear it!