Tiramisu Parfait #Recipe by Maya Corrigan

For the last week I've been working on the copy edits for A Parfait Crime, the 9th Five-Ingredient Mystery coming out in October 2023. Today I'm sharing a recipe from that book to whet your appetite. Though tiramisu is usually made in a large pan, this recipe makes 6-8 individual servings for glasses, jars, or cups.

Parfaits are layered desserts, though what goes into the layers varies. The creamy layer might be cold or frozen custard, whipped cream, ice cream, or yogurt. Another layer—cake pieces, crumbled biscuits, or crushed cookies—is often soaked in liquor or a flavored syrup. A healthy breakfast parfait usually consists of yogurt, granola or oats, and fruit. 

My sleuth Val's grandfather, who limits himself to making recipes with five ingredients, serves this treat at a rehearsal for an amateur production of Agatha Christie's play, The Mousetrap. 

Ingredients

1cup espresso or strong coffee, cooled
3/4 cup cold heavy cream
8 ounces Mascarpone cheese
3 tablespoons Kahlúa, other coffee liqueur, or coffee syrup
12 crunchy ladyfingers (1 package Savoiardi Italian ladyfingers)

Optional garnishes: unsweetened cocoa powder, shaved chocolate, or raspberries

Note: The sweetness in this dessert comes from the liqueur or coffee syrup. If you leave out that ingredient or if you have a sweet tooth or usually drink sugared coffee, add 1/4-1/2 cup of confectioners sugar to the cream when you beat it.

Make the coffee and set it aside to cool.

Beat the cream in a small bowl (adding any sugar you want to include) until it reaches stiff peak stage. Set the cream aside.

In a different bowl, beat the Mascarpone and the Kahlúa or syrup until the mixture is soft.

Fold the whipped cream into the cheese mix.

Assembling the parfait

Cut one ladyfinger in half or thirds, depending on the size of your glass. Dunk it quickly in the coffee, turning it once, and place one or two pieces in the bottom of the glass. Spoon a layer of the cheese mixture over the ladyfingers. Dunk another halved ladyfinger in the coffee and add it on top of the cheese mixture in the glass. Spoon on another layer of cheese. If you have really tall glasses, you may need to add other layers. Always end with the cheese on top. 

Repeat the assembly instructions for each parfait glass. Repeat the assembly instructions for each parfait glass. Refrigerate the parfaits for at least 4 hours. You can keep them in the fridge for as long as two days.  

Serve as is or, just before serving, top with sifted cocoa powder, shaved chocolate, or raspberries.   

 

Do you enjoy parfaits and what goes into your favorite one? 

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Maya Corrigan writes the Five-Ingredient Mysteries featuring café manger Val and her live-wire grandfather solving murders in a Chesapeake Bay town. Maya lives in a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Before writing crime fiction, she taught American literature, writing, and detective fiction at Northern Virginia Community College and Georgetown University. When not reading and writing, she enjoys theater, travel, trivia, cooking, and crosswords.

The 9th Five-Ingredient Mystery, A Parfait Crime, comes out in October 2023 and is available now for preorder. 

A granddaughter-grandfather sleuthing duo take on a perplexing new case in the latest culinary cozy mystery, sure to appeal to fans of Diane Mott, Joanne Fluke, and Katherine Hall Page.

At the site of a fatal blaze, Val’s boyfriend, a firefighter trainee, is shocked to learn the victim is known to him, a woman named Jane who belonged to the local Agatha Christie book club—and was rehearsing alongside Val’s grandfather for an upcoming Christie play being staged for charity. Just as shocking are the skeletal remains of a man found in the freezer. Who is he and who put him on ice?

After Val is chosen to replace Jane in the play, the cast gathers at their house to get to work—and enjoy Granddad’s five-ingredient parfaits—but all anyone can focus on is the bizarre real-life mystery. When it’s revealed that Jane’s death was due to something other than smoke inhalation, Val and Granddad try to retrace her final days. As they dig into her past life, their inquiry leads them to a fancy new spa in town—where they discover that Jane wasn’t the only one who had a skeleton in the cooler . . .

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Halloween Pudding Parfaits

I have taken some good natured teasing about some of my Halloween dishes. The mere picture of my Chicken Scary-aki, for instance, is rumored to have sent grown men screaming from the room. I don't think my vampire cupcake sent anyone into a panic, but you never know.




So for Halloween this year, I tried to come up with something a little less gruesome. It seemed to me that Halloween was always a very busy late afternoon and evening at our house when I was growing up. Preparing the candy ready for the trick-or-treaters, feeding everyone, getting costumes on. There was the inevitable argument about not wearing a coat or hat that would spoil the costume and then friends usually joined us for the big house-to-house event, so guests added a whole other dimension to Halloween night.

The point is, that unless you're fabulously organized, Halloween might be a bit of a rush in your household, too. So I tried to come up with something that can be made rather quickly, and the result is a Halloween Pudding Parfait. I really love the colors. I think they're pretty enough to offer to adults at a Halloween dinner party, and who doesn't love pudding?

If you're not inclined to make your own pudding, I think you could accomplish this with ready made pudding, food coloring and whipped cream. It shouldn't take long to assemble them. They look best in a V-shaped glass, like these parfaits, but really, you can use any shape glass. I do recommend using one with a rather wide mouth, though. A tulip champagne glass, for instance, would be very pretty, but you would have to pipe everything into the glasses, which would eat up time. As it is, I piped the whipped cream into the bottoms because they were too narrow for a spoon. But I spooned the rest in.

Use your finger to mash each layer down a little bit. I have air holes in my first ones. They don't matter of course, but they're prettier without them. I'm including my favorite chocolate and vanilla pudding recipes, but feel free to use your favorites, whether they are homemade or from a mix.

You could easily substitute an orange layer for the gold layer that I have, or skip the chocolate (did I hear gasps?) and go with traditional orange, yellow and white like candy corn.

I loved the pictures of Tonka and the Maffini princesses in their costumes, pained expressions and all. I figured it was time a feline showed up in costume. I don't think Mochie minded the mouse hat so much but he thought it was undignified for a cat to pretend to be a mouse. Felines!

 

Chocolate Pudding

(modified from Have Your Cake and Eat It Too, by Susan G. Purdy

2 cups nonfat milk

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup plus two tablespoons unsweetened powdered cocoa

1/4 cup cornstarch

pinch of salt

1/4 cup dark corn syrup

1 egg

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 - 2 tablespoons butter

1. Pour the milk into a Pyrex measuring cup.

2. Combine the sugar, cocoa, cornstarch, and salt in the pot. Whisk together and get rid of any lumps. Use the whisk like a spoon, it’s just more efficient in breaking up the lumps.

3. Pour the cold milk into the pot and whisk until blended.

(Note that you still haven't turned on the stove!)

4. Measure the corn syrup in the same Pyrex cup. Add to the pot and whisk in.

5. Turn the burner to medium high and bring to a gentle boil, using the whisk as a spoon and stirring. You may need to turn down the heat when it begins to bubble. Cook so it gently bubbles, stirring with the whisk for one minute. It will thicken.

6. Remove from heat temporarily.

7. Break the egg into the same Pyrex cup and whisk with a small whisk (or a fork).

Drop a tiny amount of the hot milk mixture into the egg and whisk immediately to temper it. Add a little bit more and whisk. (This is so the egg won’t seize up and cook when it’s added to the warm liquid.)

8. Add the egg to the milk mixture and whisk in.

9. Bring to a gentle boil again and let cook for one minute, stirring the whole time.

10. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla and the butter.

1234 Vanilla Pudding

1 egg

2 cups of skim or non-fat milk

1/3 cup sugar (if you're watching sugar, you can take out a teaspoon or two)

1/4 cup corn starch

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon vanilla

dash of salt

turmeric (roughly 3/4 teaspoon) or food coloring

Place the corn starch, sugar, and dash of salt in a heavy-bottomed saucepan.  Using a whisk, mix the dry ingredients. Pour the cold milk over the dry ingredients and, still using the whisk, blend them.  (You're not using the whisk to whisk, just to blend and stir.)  Crack the egg into the empty milk measuring cup and whisk (if you don't have a tiny whisk, use a fork) thoroughly.  

Turn on the burner to medium high.  Stir the milk mixture with the whisk to be sure the mixture doesn't burn.  You may need to turn the heat back a bit when it begins to bubble.  Stirring the whole time, let bubble softly for one minute.  Remove from heat.  

Drop a few drops of the hot mixture into the egg and whisk.  Add a few more drops and whisk again to temper the egg.  Add the egg to the milk mixture and whisk to blend.  Stirring continuously, add the turmeric until it's the shade you want, bring it back to a gentle boil and cook for one minute.

Remove from heat.  Add vanilla and butter and stir to mix.

Whipped Cream

1/2 cup heavy cream

3 tablespoons confectioner's sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Beat the cream. When it begins to take shape, add the sugar and the vanilla. Beat until it holds a shape.

Assembly

candy corn

Pipe or spoon whipped cream into the bottom of each glass. 

 

Spoon vanilla pudding in, pressing down gently to mash out air holes Spoon chocolate pudding on top. Garnish with candy corn if desired.