Recipe
🍰 DESSERT
Tiramisù
Coffee-soaked ladyfingers layered with airy mascarpone cream and dusted with cocoa, Italy's most famous dessert.
Italian · easy · serves 8
prep 30 min · cook 0 min
~450 cal · 7g protein · 39g carbs · 29g fat · 0g fiber · 31g sugars · 17g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Tiramisù, meaning pick me up, is a relatively modern Italian invention, generally traced to the Veneto in the 1960s or 70s, though several towns claim it. The pick-me-up comes from its espresso and, traditionally, a little marsala or liqueur.
It is an assembly rather than a bake: ladyfingers dipped in strong coffee are layered with a rich cream of mascarpone, egg, and sugar, then dusted with bitter cocoa. Kept cold so the biscuits soften and the flavours marry, it is elegant, boozy, and endlessly comforting.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and nut- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 8
24 ladyfinger biscuits
1 lb mascarpone
4 eggs, separated
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups strong espresso, cooled
3 tbsp marsala or coffee liqueur
to finish cocoa powder, to dust
Instructions
1
Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until pale, then fold in the mascarpone.
2
Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold them gently into the mascarpone cream.
✎ Chef’s note
Fold the whipped whites in gently and in stages. Knocking the air out here is the difference between a light cream and a dense one.
3
Dip each ladyfinger briefly in the coffee spiked with marsala, and layer in a dish.
4
Spread over half the cream, add another layer of dipped biscuits, then the rest of the cream.
5
Chill at least 4 hours, then dust thickly with cocoa before serving.
Italian dessert tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Lombardy (Milan). Lombardy, around Milan, cooks rich and butter-based, saffron risotto alla milanese, osso buco, and panettone. Milan likes to date the golden risotto to a glassmaker's apprentice at the Duomo in 1574, but that story was first printed in the 1930s, and saffron rice had reached Lombardy far earlier from the Arab-influenced south. Northern Italy's wealthiest region prizes rice, butter, and slow braises over olive oil and tomato.
🗺️
Italy. A good deal of the Italian pantry is younger than the Renaissance. Tomatoes, peppers, beans, maize and squash all crossed from the Americas after 1500 and took generations to be trusted, which is why the earliest printed Neapolitan pizza was a sweet one. The older divide is fat: butter and lard through the north, olive oil down the length of the peninsula.
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Europe. A surprising amount of European cooking is under five hundred years old. Tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, maize, beans and chocolate all crossed from the Americas after 1492, and none of them was trusted quickly: the potato took most of the eighteenth century to be accepted as food rather than animal fodder across much of the north.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Italy
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Tagliatelle al RagùBologna’s slow-simmered meat sauce folded through fresh ribbon pasta, the dish the world calls "bolognese," done right.
Spaghetti alle VongoleSpaghetti tossed with clams, garlic, white wine, and parsley, the Bay of Naples in eight ingredients.
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Good to know
You’ll need: Whisk.
Storing it: Keep chilled and covered, and enjoy within 2 to 3 days.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Tiramisù?
Coffee-soaked ladyfingers layered with airy mascarpone cream and dusted with cocoa, Italy's most famous dessert.
Where does Tiramisù come from?
Tiramisù is a Italian dish from Lombardy (Milan), Italy.
Can Tiramisù be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Tiramisù recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Tiramisù safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Tiramisù take to make?
About 30 minutes total (30 minutes prep, 0 minutes cooking), serving 8.
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