Tiramisu Slice

For the vanilla pastry cream:

1 tablespoon/8gms all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon/ 2.5ml vanilla extract
1 large egg yolk
3/4 cup/175ml whole milk
Transfer the pastry cream to a bowl and cool to room temperature. Cover with plastic film and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight, until thoroughly chilled.

1/4 cup/55gms sugar

Mix together the sugar, flour, lemon zest and vanilla extract in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan. To this add the egg yolk and half the milk. Whisk until smooth. Now place the saucepan over low heat and cook, stirring constantly to prevent the mixture from curdling. Add the remaining milk a little at a time, still stirring constantly. After about 12 minutes the mixture will be thick, free of lumps and beginning to bubble. (If you have a few lumps, don’t worry. You can push the cream through a fine-mesh strainer.)

Sponge cake

1/3 cup (50g) cornflour

1/3 cup (50g) plain flour

1/3 cup (50g) self-rising flour

4 x 60g eggs, at room temperature

2/3 cup (150g) caster sugar

Grease 2 x deep, 20cm round cake tins (or different tins, as directed in individual recipes) and line bases with baking paper. Sift flours and 1/4 tsp. salt together three times to aerate. Preheat oven to 180C. Using an electric mixer, beat eggs and sugar in a large bowl on medium-high speed for 6 minutes or until mixture is thick, pale and tripled in volume. Gradually sift flour mixture over egg mixture while simultaneously folding in with a large metal spoon until just combined. Divide mixture between prepared tins. To level batter, gently spin tins on kitchen counter. Bake for 20 minutes (or as directed in individual recipes), or until cakes have shrunk away from the sides slightly and spring back when gently touched. Turn out on to baking paper-lined wire racks. Carefully peel away baking paper, then leave to cool.

To create

500g Mascarpone

1 cup of cold brewed coffee or coffee liquor

Mix pastry cream together with 500g Mascarpone and 2 teaspoons of vanilla. Cut sponge into three, place one layer of sponge in a deep dish and sprinkle with cold brewed coffee or coffee liquor. Spoon on one third of the crème mix and repeat with remaining layers, ending with crème. Cover and allow to sit in the fridge for 4 hours.  Dust with cocoa powder and slice.