Another Gathering, Another Tiramisu!

Spring has been gorgeous so far, although the weather changed quite drastically lately from 95F to 65 in just two days, but I'm not complaining. It's been beautiful and I'm enjoying every minute of it. The other reason why I enjoy it so much is because Spring is when the tulip is starting to show up everywhere. It's my ultimate favorite flower (especially the white and the soft pink color :D), but unfortunately, the season doesn't last for so long. I think it's only readily available mostly on April-May. So, I'm trying to spend most of my weekend outside enjoying the warmth of the sun and the cool breeze during the day (although my allergy definitely will not do me any good). You can definitely smell the Magnolia blooming at night, what else could you ask for.

In the middle of the craziness that has been happening daily, I saw an email on Wednesday morning that there will be another gathering for a group of people at work on Friday noon, called "Dip Day". It's basically everything dips, chips, appetizer, etc. and it's clearly said in the email that except for me, I have to bring a dessert, @_@. Hmm.... it was Wednesday and that means I have to come up with something to make (which is always the hardest thing for me), and when to make. I knew for sure that I would be coming home late on both Wed. and Thurs., so a plan is definitely needed of what to make, when to buy the ingredients, when to make it, and when to decorate it.

After a careful consideration, tiramisu came to be the winner. I had some of the ingredients ready, which are the lady fingers, rum and espresso (which are staples in my pantry), all I needed to buy were the mascarpone cheese and heavy cream. Tiramisu is probably the ultimate choice everytime I need to make something quick but will still please everybody. I've never met a single person who doesn't like tiramisu so far. Plus it is fairly quick to make as no oven needed and the decoration doesn't take too long either as tiramisu has that classic decoration look already. The downside is, since it is so popular and almost every single bakery has it, each person has what they each call the best tiramisu in their life. It is quite nerve-wrecking to serve something that's probably not going to matach up their high tiramisu standard. I must admit that there are a lot of bakeries and restaurants out there that have a really good tiramisu, and trying to make something similar or at least be the same level as restaurant standard for a tough crowd, is quite a risk, but I did it anyway.

Nothing new to this tiramisu as I make it quite often. Getting bored with the square look, I decided to finally make use of my hexagonal cake ring that I bought more than a year ago to assemble the dessert. This is also the first time I used my Valrhona cocoa powder and I'm in love with it. It has a deep chocolate flavor and the color is wonderful too. I'm glad that everybody enjoyed the dessert, it is always a great pleasure everytime. And I am so glad that in the midst of the heavy work-load that everybody has, we managed to set aside some time enjoying each other's company and enjoying good food. The food has always been great, I guess it's true that there's a chef hidden inside every person :D.