A festive spin on traditional tiramisu, with cinnamon apples, speculoos cookies and caramel topping.
Todays recipe is officially my new favorite winter dessert. When I first had the idea for this recipe, I knew it would be good (I mean can anything with mascarpone and rum not taste good?!) , but I had no idea how knock-your-socks off amazing it would actually be! The cinnamon apples combined with the spiced cookies layered between creamy mascarpone is an amazing flavour combo.
As you may have read in my latest blog post, we are doing a rather low key Christmas this year. This dessert right here, fits that scenario perfectly. It can be whipped up within less than 30 minutes and doesn’t require any baking. Plus it’s ideal for making ahead as it actually gets better after several hours of chilling. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like the perfect Christmas dessert to me. Thus we are having speculoos tiramisu for Christmas this year. Needless to say, Mr. HBB is on board with that too. 🙂
I am still trying to decide what to serve as a main course. I’m contemplating whether or not to serve raclette, given that we live in Switzerland now and just bought a new set last year. While I have always been a fan of raclette, I never ate it on a regular basis until we moved here. I honestly didn’t understand what the big deal was about until I was introduced to Swiss cheese culture. Living in Switzerland makes it impossible to not enjoy good cheese and chocolate. 🧀🍫
Chilling Time
Like a traditional tiramisu, this speculoos tiramisu needs to chill for at least 4 hours for the cookie layer to turn soft and the flavours to develop. However, if you’d rather enjoy this tiramisu with a crunchy cookie layer in the center, feel free to skip the chilling and serve it earlier. I tried both versions and loved the taste and texture equally. The crunchy cookies are a nice contrast to the soft apples and creamy mascarpone. But if you are going for a more classic tiramisu texture, I suggest you chill the tiramisu like the recipe calls for.
Speculoos cookies (or Spekulatius Kekse as they are called in German) are incredibly popular during the Christmas season in my home country. Growing up, they were a treat we’d enjoy every winter season. We’d usually eat them alongside a cup of tea or hot cocoa and dunk the cookies into whatever warm beverage we were having to soften them. I still dunk my speculoos cookies up to this day. 🙂
Given the popularity of these cookies, I just had to come up with a Christmas themed recipe to feature these spicy delights. Since they can hold quite a bit of liquid, I thought they would make a perfect flavourful layer for a Christmas themed tiramisu. Turns out, pairing them with apples and mascarpone was a great idea! This recipe is a huge hit with guests and something everyone enjoys. Try this easy tiramisu and see for yourself.
Cinnamon Apples
This recipe is perfect for using up those sad looking apples in the back of your fridge (don’t we all have those from time to time!). Once you cook them in the cinnamon sugar, they become super delicious… no matter how mealy they were before! To spice the apples, we are also using ground cloves and vanilla. Your home will smell like Christmas when you cook this on the stove…no joke!
Egg Yolks
The recipe calls for 2 raw egg yolks, which is a bit of a hot topic in America due to the fear of salmonella. I have eaten my faire share of tiramisus and I have never once gotten salmonella. The chance of actually getting salmonella from raw eggs is not as high as you might think (about one in twenty thousand eggs is thought to be contaminated with salmonella in America) and if you are brave enough to eat sushi at an Asian restaurant, raw eggs shouldn’t intimate you. (There are of course exceptions, such as pregnant women.) I always make my tiramisus the traditional Italian way because they taste a lot better than eggless versions. However, feel free to do as you wish, and of course, consume raw eggs at your own risk.
Since this is the last post I’ll be sharing before Christmas, I want to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas! I hope you’ll have a wonderful celebration with your loved ones. See you next week for a New Years Eve post 🙂
PrintSpeculoos Tiramisu with Cinnamon Apples
A festive spin on traditional tiramisu, with cinnamon apples, speculoos cookies and caramel sauce.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 5 minutes
- Total Time: 4 hours and 25 minutes (includes chilling)
- Yield: 4
Ingredients
Cinnamon Apple Layer
- 2 medium apples
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Tiramisu
- 100g speculoos cookies (3.5oz)
- 2 egg yolks
- 80g white granulated sugar (1/3 cup)
- 1 tablespoon dark rum
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 500g mascarpone (2 and 1/4 cups)
- caramel sauce for garnishing
- dried apples for garnishing, optional
Instructions
- For the cinnamon apple layer, peel the apples and chop into bite size pieces.
- Add a small amount of water to a saucepan and sauté the apples for about 3 minutes or until they start to get soft. Then add the brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves and vanilla extract. Cook until apples have broken down and most of the liquid has evaporated, then remove from heat.
- For the speculoos layer, place the speculoos cookies into a ziplock bag and crush them with a rolling pin.
- For the mascarpone cream, beat the egg yolks and sugar with a hand mixer until pale and fluffy. Then add in the rum, vanilla extract and mascarpone and beat until the cream is smooth.
- Layer the tiramisu in clean glasses. Start off with the mascarpone cream and add the cinnamon apples on top, then the crushed cookies (reserve some for garnishing) and then another mascarpone layer.
- Chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours or up to 2 days. Top each glass off with caramel sauce and extra crushed cookies right before serving. Optionally add dried apple slices as decor.
Notes
Store in the fridge for up to 5 days.
This sounds like an absolute smasher of a dessert! So creative and delicious. Thank you for sharing, Natanja! 🙂
Thank you Nicole! Glad you think so. 🙂 Wishing you a happy New Year!