Daring Bakers: Tiramisu

The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.
Tiramisu is a traditional Italian dessert, but in all my years studying Italian and going to department dinners, I don't think this dessert ever came up. I think I first learned about it only by accident a few years ago. So I suspect it's not really that big of a deal in Italy, but maybe I'm wrong. I've never actually been to Italy. Someday when I've made my millions as a farmer (hah hah), Florence is at the very top of my list of places to visit (I might have a mild obsession and crush on Dante).Whatever the case, this was so much fun to make. It's a good thing I took a day off of work to make the tiramisu, it's another one of those projects. We had to make from scratch our own custards (zabaglione and pastry cream), our own lady fingers, and even our own mascarpone cheese. I think the mascarpone is the best part: it's really expensive at the grocery store, but super cheap and easy to make on your own. (Note: I found out, like others did, that the cream never did get to a high enough temperature in the water bath, so I just put the pot of cream straight on the burner, and it turned out fine.) Great challenge!