There is a mistake in the above title – this dessert is easily made with kids, but no baking is really taking place. It’s a very fun project to do with children of just about any age, since no heat is needed and no hard work is involved.

I am not Italian, so I took some shortcuts. This is why our dessert can’t be called from scratch. But if it tastes good, who cares, right? And it does taste good!

I got an idea to make this easy tiramisu on my last shopping trip in our international farmers market, which is always full of good stuff. This time I spotted a box with tiramisu kit and got interested. The kit was made in Italy and looked very legit. The only thing I didn’t like was making mascarpone cream from included powder package.

Another viable option is to use Instacart for your grocery shopping needs. The service is super convenient and very affordable, especially with yearly membership, because then you wouldn’t have to pay for delivery. Instacart can send their shoppers to buy things for you in as little as one hour.

Instead I went to the dairy section and got 3 small packages of real mascarpone cheese.

When I got home, my almost 10 year old daughter was very enthusiastic about helping, especially when it was going to take just about 15 minutes.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of organic mascarpone cheese (room temperature)
• 1 cup of organic heavy whipping cream
• 1/3 cup of brown sugar or sugar substitute of choice
• 1 teaspoon of organic vanilla extract
• 8 ladyfinger cookies
• A cup of lightly sweetened coffee
• ½ cup of warm water to dilute coffee
• Cocoa powder

My kit had everything included, but let’s talk over how to make tiramisu from scratch.

You can start by brewing a cup of coffee with just a bit of sugar. Let it sit until you are ready to dilute it with water for ladyfinger cookie dipping.

The next and most important part – mascarpone cream.

In a mixer bowl combine heavy whipping cream, sugar, and vanilla extract.

Start mixing on low speed and slowly increase. Make sure you stop when you start seeing soft peaks forming. If you continue mixing after that, you might make some sweet butter instead of cream.

Add mascarpone cheese to the mixed cream and continue on slow speed.

All you have to achieve here is evenly combined cream and cheese. Be careful to not overmix this also.

That’s about it - you are ready to make the tiramisu!

Take a dish that would fit 4 soaked and expanded ladyfingers. I put some cream on the bottom simply because I had a whole bunch of cream, but you don’t have to.

The next step is soaking each ladyfinger in coffee, diluted with water. It takes just a second of soaking before the cookie becomes soggy, so take it out right away.

Place 4 cookies one next to another and then spread a layer of cream.

Repeat this one more time. I also put a few raspberries in just for looks, but it’s also optional.

The final step is to sift some cocoa powder over the top layer of cream. This gives tiramisu its signature look and distinct coffee and chocolate smell. Chill it for a couple of hours in the refrigerator and enjoy!