A dear friend and I indulged a craving for tiramisu the other day by buying a single-layer one from Whole Foods. "Don't get me wrong," I told him, "This is a tasty cake. But it's not tiramisu." The bottom cake layer wasn't squishy enough with coffee, for one thing. And there was an awful lot of the cake layer, and a butter cream fosting...yummy & all. It just wasn't all that tiramisu-y.
Which led me to wonder: where does Whole Foods get off making so damn much of this imposter? Their bakery display case is lousy with tiramisi of 2 or 3 forms every ding dang day I go in there. And to think all of it is wrong, wrong, wrong. Which led him to wonder: where does one go for a good tiramisu around here? [music swells]
And so begins the Quest!
Chapter One: Trader Joe's freezer section
Defrost a couple hours in the fridge, gingerly remove the plastic band around the sides...and get chocolate powder all over your hands, fridge shelves, countertops, everything. I have never seen a cake so well dusted with chocolate. More on this later.
This one hits the tiramisu spot. Pleasantly squishy with coffee on the bottom chocolate cake layer, nummy custardy goop-de-goo making up the majority of the cake, then the Thickest Layer of Chocolate Powder on the Planet ZOMG. It's prevalent enough that you have to do that thing when eating powdered doughnuts, where you don't breathe in as you're biting because you'll cause a (tasty) dust storm in your mouth and start coughing. So, proceed with caution.
Trader Joe's prepackaged tiramisu is now the one to beat. Sad trumpet sounds for you, Whole Foods!
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3 comments:
You know- I've been thinking about doing a similar thing with various foods. I thought about Thom Ka Gai, the Thai coconut milk soup. I thought about trying to get them all together in one place, but a serial review situation could work as well. You like Thom Ka Gai, Bonnie?
I lerve Thom Ka Gai, and am pro-Tasting Parties. I had a Pizza-off for my moving away party back in the late mid 90s when I went to try on SLO for awhile (didn't take). At the time, Pleasure Point Pizza won, or was it a take-n-bake that beat them all?
...but yes, serial reviews mean other folks can weigh in whenever they happen upon a commentable cuppa. You getting on that one, Mizz Kischka?
...and so folks should feel free to offer their own tiramisu reviews. On Facebook I had one (very correct) vote for a slice of Avanti's. Very correct, very tiramisu. AND interested parties should know my pal is curious about where a guy could get a *whole* damn tasty tiramisu, om nom nom.
Although as his daughter wisely said, "You won't lose weight eating half a cake every day," and, um, neither will I. That Trader Joe's freezer section tiramisu did not last very long--it burned a hole in my fridge and left only powdery brown smudge marks.
So there may be a tiramisu tasting party in our future, so we can share the collective waistline burden. (True pals do that for each other.)
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