Tiramisu

Instructions

1. In a small dish/bowl, mix the coffee, Amaretto, Tia Maria and coffee extract.
2. Split the sponge in half widthways as though you were going to fill it like a classic sponge cake.
3. Slice both halves into fingers about ½” / 1 cm wide. Do not cut off the curved edges as these help you to cover the bottom of a circular dish neatly. Cut the fingers into lengths of about 2½” / 6 cm. The longer fingers from the middle of the round of cake will go into three, while the fingers from the edge of the round will only make two.
4. Lay enough of the fingers in the serving dish to cover the bottom, trimming as necessary to fit the gaps.
5. Spoon ½ of the coffee mixture (about 3tbsps) over the layer of sponge in the serving dish and leave to soak while you prepare the rest of the dish.
6. Put the custard powder and the Demerara sugar into a saucepan and mix with a spiral whisk or a wooden spoon.
7. In a jug, measure and mix the Soya Dream and the soya/rice milk.
8. Pour a little of the milk mixture onto the custard powder and sugar and blend until smooth and lump-free.
9. Add the rest of the milk mixture a little at a time, making sure that each addition is fully incorporated before you add any more. Don’t rush this bit or you’ll end up with lumps.
10. Add the vanilla extract and, whisking gently, heat the mixture over a low heat. You need to keep a close eye on this as it burns very easily, so don’t leave it to heat while you do something else; keep stirring gently but continuously.
11. When the custard thickens, allow it to simmer, stirring constantly for 30-40 seconds to cook out the taste of the cornflour. Taste it to check that it is ready. (I dip a cold teaspoon into the custard to avoid burning myself.)
12. Allow the custard to cool while you prepare the tofu mixture, but remember to keep stirring it every minute or so to prevent a skin from forming. If you wish, you can cover the surface with clingfilm, but this slows down the cooling process quite considerably, so I’d only do that if you’re making the custard in advance of preparing the rest of the dish.
13. Meanwhile, in a medium/large mixing bowl, beat the tofu with the icing sugar using an electric hand mixer. Start with the mixer on slow and, when you run less risk of covering the kitchen in icing sugar, turn it up to high speed and blend until the tofu is completely smooth and creamy.
14. Add the lemon juice and beat in.
15. Add the cooled custard and beat until evenly blended.
16. Put of the custard/tofu mixture onto the layer of soaked sponge in your serving dish and spread it out evenly with the back of a spoon. Try not to smear it up the sides of the dish as the layers look really good in a glass dish when the dish is complete.
17. Cover the layer of custard/tofu mixture with another one of sponge fingers. Cut them to fit as before and place them in position gently not pressing them down into the layer below.
18. Spoon over the remaining coffee mixture, taking care to “dose” all of the fingers.
19. Cover the sponge layer with the rest of the custard/tofu mixture and spread it out evenly as before.
20. Cover the dish with clingfilm and chill overnight.
21. Just before serving, dust all over the surface with the cocoa powder and then dust the centre of the dessert with icing sugar so that roughly the middle half of the surface is covered with both cocoa and icing sugar, while the outer half has just cocoa on it.