Ok, this is not really a Tiramisu! If you disagree with what I’ve called this, I would still encourage you to try making it – you can just call it trifle instead!
This dessert is like sunshine in a bowl. It’s rich, creamy and comforting, but has so much zip and zing from the lemon which is just what I want when the Spring or Summer rolls round. This is very simple to put together, but you do need some patience or pre-planning to let it sit in the fridge for long enough before serving to make sure all the sponge fingers have soaked up that zesty lemon syrup!
I hope you will love this recipe, and it becomes part of your dinner party dessert rotation!
Lemon ‘Tiramisu’
4-8
servings30
minutes5
hoursIngredients
- For the syrup
95g lemon juice (about 3 lemons)
60g lime juice (about 3 liimes)
105g water
125g sugar
About 25-30 sponge fingers
- For the cream
150g mascarpone
150g ricotta
50g icing sugar
Zest of the 3 juiced lemons and limes
300ml double cream
- Other Ingredients
200g lemon curd
Directions
- Zest the lemons and limes and set the zest aside.
- Make the Syrup
- Juice the lemons and limes through a sieve and weigh the liquid. You should have about 95g lemon juice and 60g lime juice, but it doesn’t matter if you are 50g or so off. Add in water so the total weight of the liquid is 260g. Add in the 125g of sugar and stir in a pan over high heat until it boils, then remove it from the heat.
- Make the Cream
- Whisk together the mascarpone, ricotta, icing sugar and citrus zest (reserve a little zest for decoration) until fairly smooth. Add half of the cream and whisk until just combined, then add the other half of the cream and whisk for a couple of minutes until it thickens to a soft spreadable texture.
You can overwhisk this and risk it splitting, so stop when it’s thick and spreadable, but still quite soft (see the video below to check out the consistency). - Assemble
- Cover the bottom of your serving dish with a thin layer of the cream.
- Pour half of the syrup into a wide dish a similar size to your serving dish. Soak half the sponge fingers in this syrup, flipping the fingers over after about 10 seconds. The fingers should soak up almost all of the syrup.
- Lay the soaked sponge fingers over your serving dish and cover with half of the lemon curd and half of the cream mixture.
- Soak the second half of sponge fingers in the remaining syrup (flipping after about 10 seconds) and repeat the layering, finishing with the remaining curd and a top layer of the remaining cream.
- Leave to chill in the fridge for at least 5 hours or overnight before serving and enjoying!
Recipe Video
Notes
- If you have a deep and narrow dish, you may need to use more layers of cream and sponge. Only soak a single layer of sponge fingers at a time in the appropriate portion of syrup (i.e. for a 3 layer dessert, soak 1/3 of the fingers in 1/3 of the syrup, and layer this up with about 1/3 of the curd and cream). If you soak too many fingers at once, they will become more difficult to move into the dish as they soak for longer.
Absolutely outstanding! So simple yet so delicious. And I even left out the lemon curd by accident 🤦🏻♀️
Still delicious. Served with a little curd on the side, even better
I am so glad to hear you enjoyed it!!!
Made this for Sunday lunch today. Really delicious and very popular. Great recipe thanks
So glad to hear you enjoyed it!!!
What size of serving dish would you recommend?
I was using about a 10inch diameter shallow dish. A deeper 8 or 9 inch dish would probably work well. You might want to split the mixture into 3 layers if using a narrower dish.
Will this make 8 decent servings? Recipe says serves 4-8 so I’m wondering if I should make it a bit bigger for 8? Thank you 😊
If you’re having a celebration meal it might be worth going for a 1.5 or 2x recipe. Having leftovers also isn’t a bad thing!
Great thank you! My family like their food so I’ll do that!
Hi, this looks great but I would like to reduce the sugar or sweetness as I generally find many dessert recipes overly sweet. Please could you advise? Also, how long in advance could one make this dessert? Thanks.
Hi there, absolutely feel free to reduce the sugar in the syrup and the cream mixture. The texture will remain about the same, so it’s an easy bake to reduce the sugar in. I would just work this to your taste preference.
I would suggest making this dessert one or two days in advance. Just avoid decorating with any extra zest until you are about to serve the dessert. Hope you enjoy baking this one!