10:23 — IT’S BILL’S BIRTHDAY!! I won’t say how old he is, because a lady never tells (that’s what that phrase means, right?). I WILL tell you, however, that he does not want cake for his birthday. He does not want pie. He doesn’t even want rice krispie treats with rainbow sprinkles on them, which is my birthday dessert of choice. No, this fancy lad wants tiramisu, which is something I have never made before. So. Let’s get ready to…hope this turns out okay. (See, if he’d wanted an apple crumble or something, I could’ve said, “Let’s get ready to crumble!” but what kind of puns can you make with tiramisu?)

10:25 — Oh, wait. I got one.

Me: I tira-miss you!
Bill: *speechless with admiration for my punnery*
Me: I know. You tira-miss-me-tu.

11:35 — Alright, let’s ride. First we have to make ladyfingers, which seem like finicky little devils. You cook eggs and sugar together over a double boiler until they reach 160 degrees, then whip them in a stand mixer until they’re pale and fluffy. The whipped eggs are the only leavening to prompt these little guys to rise into spongy fingers, so if I don’t get it right, the cookies are ruined. NO PRESSURE, THOUGH.

11:37 — It looks like hot, foamy orange juice. Yum.

11:40 — After five minutes of stirring and scraping over a steamy pot, the temperature has reached 160, but these eggs definitely look a little scrambled. DID I RUIN IT ALREADY?

11:42 — No time to worry about it! On to the whisking. This is a CRUCIAL STAGE, the recipe says. If the eggs don’t whip into soft peaks, the ladyfingers will be FLAT and FAT. Which, as every lady knows, is a matter of deepest shame. Wherever will you find a pair of white kidskin gloves to fit over your Flat Stanley hands? You know you can’t go to a dance without gloves, Jo, and yours are all stained with lemonade!

11:43 — Wow. I really need some breakfast. Not eggs.

11:46 — Incidentally, my mom made me that awesome apron with Harry Potter newsprint…print. Which reminds me, where did Arthur Weasley work, again? The tira-Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office? (Boom, still got it.)

11:49 — By this point in the whipping process, the egg mixture is supposed to be foamy and quadrupled in size and able to hold soft peaks, like soft serve. Mine looks suspiciously like…cake batter? And it’s not holding any kind of peaks, soft or otherwise. It might be time for Attempt Number 2. Luckily I have a dozen and a half eggs. A sesquidozen eggs. Unfortunately, our sugar situation is less secure, so this might be our final attempt.

11:56 — Oh, jeez. I just realized I have to do this whole thing again for the mascarpone filling. THESE HOT EGGS WILL BE THE DEATH OF ME.

12:05 — Attempt No. 2 is out of the sauce pan and into the mixer. It’s in the hands of the gods now.

12:06 — Our candy thermometer has a marker for fish. I have so many questions. For instance, “Why?” and also, “How?”

12:08 — WELL, THIS ATTEMPT IS MUCH BETTER. Not perfect, but it’s at least tripled in size, and there’s a distinct fluff to the mixture. I’m gonna let it go a little longer just in case, but what a relief.

12:19 — Folding flour and cornstarch into the mixture, and the cornstarch gives it the consistency of slime. It’s very satisfying.

12:21 — Batter is twisted up in the piping bag. The recipe says to pipe them out half an inch by three inches, but since I am a lady, I shall eschew such things as rulers and use my own dainty fingers as a guide. Knobbly knuckles included. One ended up with a wart, but whatevs. We are none of us ladies perfect, after all.

12:23 — Dust generously with powdered sugar—stop shaking, hands, the worst is over—so that they will rise up and not spread out in the—whoa, not that generously—in the oven. Bake at 350 for twelve minutes.

12:25 — Breathe a quick sigh of relief. Just a quick one, though—it’s time to pipe out the other tray.

12:32 — Huh. They aren’t puffing very much. And they’re spreading quite a bit, despite the liberal dusting of powdered sugar. I mean, they’ll be fine for the recipe, probably. But I blame the eggs. Or the weather. It’s raining, and if there’s one thing I know about baking, it’s that you can blame all manner of tiramishaps on humidity, temperature, or elevation.

12:36 — The second batch had an unreasonable amount of powdered sugar on it, in a last-ditch attempt to ensure puffery.

12:38 — Alright, well, let’s move on. That first part took an hour, and I do have other things to do today, like procrastinate writing.

12:40 — I FORGOT TO START THE TIMER! Luckily, I have this handy record of when I put the second tray in. Also I tried one of the first batch, and they’re not that bad. Plus, the second batch looks to be puffing up much more than the first. We may be okay yet.

12:43 — You guys. THE COFFEE SYRUP. Later we’ll be dipping ladyfingers in this beguiling concoction of cocoa, vanilla, espresso, and a surprising dose of rum, but right now it’s just sitting on the counter, filling the kitchen with its rich, intoxicating scent. I wish I could express how good this smells. But I cannot. You’ll have to make it yourself. Or come over tonight for dessert!

1:00 — Back at it with the eggs. I should be getting better at this by now, but I guess we’ll see.

1:05 — So, I was staring out the window thinking of more tiramisu portmanteaus while I stirred, and there is a small chance the eggs scrambled a bit. WHAT A TERRIBLE TIRAMISTAKE!

1:06 — Oh, well! Into the mixer!

1:08 — OH DANG, maybe slightly scrambled is the key? Because this is definitely how the other ones were SUPPOSED to look. Is it too late to restart the ladyfingers? No, that’s crazy. Don’t even consider it. Stop now.

1:09 — Okay, but hear me out—!

1:11 — So. Let’s talk about mascarpone as it mixes into the eggs. Your eyes say “cream cheese” and your mouth says “maybe ricotta?” but OH, SWEET NELLY when you combine it with those sweet fluffy eggs, you say nothing at all because you’re too busy stuffing spoonfuls of it into your mouth. It’s so good. So fluffy and beautiful. It should enter the tira-Miss Universe pageant. It would win for SURE.

1:15 — All that’s left is to assemble. First the ladyfingers take a dip in the coffee syrup and line the bottom of the dish, then a layer of custardy mascarpone is spooned on top, followed by a dusting of cocoa. Repeat. You know. Like a lasagna. If lasagna were sweet and soft and squishy and mostly made of eggs.

1:18 — Welp, here she is, friends, the tastiest treat this side of the tira-Mississippi: