Yesterday was a beautiful day. Clear skies, not warm but pleasant weather overall, got an awesome massive free lunch at Noodles&Co thanks to my friend Chase, and then I went home to my own personal box of sunshine, aka the remaining mangoes I got from Whole Foods. If you remember, they gave me a free box of them to see what I could come up with. The last post was mango ice cream and mango-ancho chili ice cream. Today’s post is still desserty–I can’t help it, mangoes are just so sweet and soft and dessert-y. Today’s post is a mashup of mangoes and my lingering obsession with Italian food, specifically ricotta cheese, after eating at RPM Italian in Chicago last week. Today’s post is a variation of tiramisu. With mango. Mango. Tiramisu.
As Isha would say, “That’s a thing.”
So let me tell you about this dish. It’s not a real tiramisu but rather a dish based on it.
[toggle title_open=”What is tiramisu?” title_closed=”What is tiramisu?” hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”][quote]Tiramisu is a layered dessert, consisting of alternating layers of coffee-soaked Savoiardi biscuits and sweet mixture of mascarpone cheese, eggs and sugar. The eggs, sugar and Marsala wine are cooked as a zabaione. Cocoa powder is sifted on top (and sometimes between layers) as both a garnish and a bitter counterpoint to the sweetened cheese mixture.–from Wikipedia[/quote] [/toggle]It’s light, airy, sweet, citrus-y, delicious and really only requires a handful of ingredients. It’s three layers of lady fingers, pureed fresh mango and whole milk ricotta with a big of sugar and orange zest added. That’s it. It took me like 5 minutes to put together and then it just sits in the fridge for a few hours and voilà!
Impressive yet simple yet delicious yet light yet [insert adjective here] dessert.
If you like this dessert–and you will, I have no doubt–you might also like the strawberry version I usually make.
Ingredients
- 3-4 medium-sized mangoes, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
- 1.5 boxes of lady fingers*
- 16oz whole ricotta (or part skim if you prefer)
- 1/4 c. sugar
- the zest of 1 small orange
- an 8"x4" loaf pan, or a couple small glass dishes; your choice
- *The amount of lady fingers used will depend on the size of the fingers, and the pan you use. I went through about 30 lady fingers (around 10 per layer) using an 8"x4" glass bread pan.
Instructions
- Put mangoes in a blender and blend until creamy.
- In a medium bowl, mix ricotta, sugar and orange zest.
- Start layering:
- One layer of lady fingers, followed by a smear of a third of the mango puree, followed by a third of the ricotta mix. Repeat twice more.
- Cover the dish with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 3-4 hours, or overnight.
- Slice, dish, nom and enjoy.
