Creamy, dreamy, and lemony! My favorite descriptors for a perfect summer dessert. Luckily for me, my homemade lemon tiramisu hits all of those marks. It’s no secret that I love a good lemon dessert. See here and here for proof. For this recipe, we start with a homemade lemon simple syrup – don’t worry, it’s just a combination of water sugar, lemon juice, lemon slices, and basil. If you can toss it all in a saucepan, you can make this easy simple syrup recipe (which, might I add is great for summer cocktails and mocktails?) To make the whipped mascarpone filling, we’re going to whip together a combination of cream cheese and mascarpone cheese in a stand mixer and then add in a packet of vanilla pudding mix to stiffen the mascarpone cream. I like to use French vanilla pudding mix so that it’s speckled with vanilla bean throughout. And then it’s on to assembly! Start with the savoiardi cookies (or ladyfingers) dip them in the lemon syrup, make a single layer in the dish biscuits, add mascarpone cream, followed by homemade or store-bought lemon curd. Repeat these layers one more time and you’ve got a fun twist on a classic Italian dessert!
Ingredients for Lemon Tiramisu:
Cream Cheese: You’ll need both a package of cream cheese and a package of mascarpone cheese. Using a combination of these two products helps cut down a little on cost.Vanilla pudding mix: You’ll need a small pack of vanilla pudding mix. I find that it not only whips the cream cheese into a wonderful, almost banana pudding-like texture. But it also adds sweetness and the perfect vanilla flavor. I like to use French vanilla pudding mix for this, if you can only find vanilla, it’s fine just add a teaspoon of vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste.Lemon curd: You’ll need roughly 12 ounces of homemade or store-bought lemon curd. Lemon curd is made with freshly squeezed lemon juice, sometimes lemon zest, and thickened with egg yolks.Ladyfinger cookies: These are easily available in most mainstream grocery stores these days. Sometimes they’re in the international aisle, and brands such as Delallo make these. Sometimes, you can also find them in the cookie aisle, depending on where your grocery store stocks them. You can also purchase them online.Sugar: You’ll need a 1/4 cup sugar to sweeten up the lemon basil simply syrup! Bonus: The syrup works beautifully with sparkling water to make an Italian Soda!Lemons: Fresh lemon juice and lemon slices go into the simple syrup recipe. This gives the simple syrup a luscious lemon flavor. We’ll soak the ladyfingers in this syrup before layering it in the dish.Basil: I used fresh basil from my garden and any variety you like eating will work well for this recipe.
How to make my lemon tiramisu recipe:
If you like this recipe, you might also like:
Italian Orange CakeKey Lime Pie BarsMangonadas (Frozen Mango Slushie)No Bake Nutella PieNo Bake Biscoff Cheesecake
Pudding mix: I like to use french vanilla pudding mix. You can also use regular vanilla and amp it up with a teaspoon of vanilla extract or bean paste.
