Barb Hodgens
Barb Hodgens

Barb Hodgens loves to cook with alternative, healthy whole food ingredients, with a focus on gut health. Barb has overcome her own gut health issues through healthy eating. Share your ideas, comments and photos at the end of this post :)

tiramisu cake

The ultimate Italian dessert with probiotic cream at last!

This gluten and grain-free take on the famous Italian dessert is every coffee lover’s dream cake. It’s a decadent dessert packed with healthy fat and whole food ingredients that is both delicious and fun to make. Don’t be intimidated by the layers, with a little forward planning it’s actually very simple to make.  

The classic Tiramisu is typically constructed with coffee-soaked ladyfinger biscuits layered between rich mascarpone cream. We discovered that the traditional recipe can be easily adapted. Instead of ‘ladyfingers’, we use a simple, one bowl, grain-free butter cake, made from a combination of almond flour and coconut flour.

Tiramisu

Mascarpone, (a soft cheese made from cream), is one of the main ingredients in a traditional tiramisu. It’s rich and buttery finish and tangy taste is very similar to homemade cultured cream. Only better! Cultured cream is pure cream that has gone through a special fermentation process (similar to making homemade yogurt) and contains strains of probiotic bacteria that help to keep you healthy and your digestion in good balance. 

Cultured cream will naturally develop a sour taste if fermented for a long time. For sweet desserts such as this, we recommend fermenting for 8-12 hours.  

A classic tiramisu cream also includes raw eggs. We use plenty of eggs in our cake batter and don’t feel the need to add more. With just a little vanilla and sweetener, cultured cream easily replicates and satisfies the Italian cheese dessert flavour. 

Tiramisu

Although, this refined sugar free Tiramisu is not a sweet as the classic, our version has the perfect balance of sweetness with just the right bitterness from the coffee and cacao powder. You can certainly control the sweetness of the cultured cream by adding extra sweetener to taste.  

Just like the traditional biscuit version, the layers of paleo cake absorb the coffee sauce, cream, and cocoa powder. After some time in the fridge, the layers meld and soften into a very heavenly creamy dessert that is sure to be a crowd pleaser.

Tiramisu cake

tiramisu layer cake steps

tiramisu layer cake steps

tiramisu layer cake steps


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Tiramisu cake