Step 1

In a shallow dish pour coffee. Add sugar and rum. Stir until dissolved. Set aside to cool.

Step 2

Put the egg yolks and sugar in a glass/ heatproof bowl or the top of a double boiler. Whisk lightly until combined. Whisk in the sweet marsala wine.

Step 3

Place the bowl or top of double boiler over barely simmering water. The bottom of the bowl mustn’t touch the water.

Step 4

Whisk continuously until the mixtures thickens and becomes pale and creamy. This will take approximately 10 minutes. Be careful not to make scrambled sweet marsala wine eggs. If necessary , take the bowl off the heat every so often if you think it’s getting too hot.

Step 5

Once the zabaglione is ready, cool it down quickly so that it doesn’t keep cooking. I do this by have a bowl ready with a small amount of ice and water. Suspend the hot bowl in the ice water and stir with the whisk until the zabaglione has cooled to room temperature. Set aside.

Step 6

Pour the heavy cream into a medium bowl and whisk either by hand or with an electric mixer until firm peaks form. You want more than soft peaks but not stiff peaks.

Step 7

Use a spoon to stir in the mascarpone cheese. I usually do this directly in the container it comes in. The purpose of this is to loosen the mascarpone cheese enough so that it blends easily with the whipped cream. Don’t over beat because the mascarpone cheese can split.

Step 8

Gently but thoroughly fold the cooled zabaglione and loosened mascarpone cheese into the whipped cream. The filling is now ready.

Step 9

Briefly dip half of the savoardi in the coffee one at a time and place them in one layer in a 8 x 8 inch x 2 inch (20 x 20cm x 5cm) pan. Be careful not to let the savoiardi soak too much because they will fall apart.

Step 10

This should make one complete layer. If not add more.

Step 11

Spread half of the mascarpone filling over the first layer of savoiardi.

Step 12

Repeat dipping (you may need to make more coffee mixture if you use it all up) and layering with the remaining savoiardi and mascarpone filling.

Step 13

Sift cocoa powder over the tiramisu.

Step 14

Refrigerate for 6 hours or better still overnight for the flavours of this Italian Tiramisu to combine and the filling to set.