Ingredients
6 egg yolks
3 tablespoons sugar
1 pound mascarpone cheese

1 1/2 cups strong espresso, cooled
2 teaspoons dark rum
24 packaged ladyfingers
1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate shavings, for garnish

Directions
In a large bowl, using an electric mixer with whisk attachment, beat egg yolks and sugar until thick and pale, about 5 minutes. Add mascarpone cheese and beat until smooth. Add 1 tablespoon of espresso and mix until thoroughly combined.
In a small shallow dish, add remaining espresso and rum. Dip each ladyfinger into espresso for only 5 seconds. Letting the ladyfingers soak too long will cause them to fall apart. Place the soaked ladyfinger on the bottom of a 13 by 9 inch baking dish, breaking them in half if necessary in order to fit the bottom.
Spread evenly 1/2 of the mascarpone mixture over the ladyfingers. Arrange another layer of soaked ladyfingers and top with remaining mascarpone mixture.
Cover tiramisu with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, up to 8 hours.
Before serving, sprinkle with chocolate shavings.

The above-listed recipe is not one you are likely to hear me say I am craving, ever. On the surface, you would probably look at this seemingly-innocuous, traditional Italian dessert and think: cookies – good, chocolate – good, espresso – good, rum – good… what’s not to crave? I used to agree with you. I used to think tiramisu is the best dessert ever. In fact, there was a time when I would go to Olive Garden with the express purpose of ordering tiramisu.

Then I went to college and met Whitney.

One night Whitney and I thought it might be fun to make tiramisu from scratch. I’m talking make the custard, shave the chocolate , brew the espresso, all from scratch. We bought the marscapone and the chocolate and a few other things we didn’t already have in the kitchen. Please note: we were pretty sure we had eggs already when we made our trip to the grocery store. While at the store, we thought it might also be fun to make pitchers of mudslides while we were assembling our tiramisu. We returned to the apartment to find the eggs were slightly past their expiration date. Undaunted, we forged ahead, whipping up a beautiful-looking batch of tiramisu. Two pitchers of mudslides later, and a third pitcher spilled down the side of the couch, we began to eat our creation. It tasted… OK. In retrospect, it didn’t really taste quite right, and if we hadn’t been intoxicated on the mudslides, we probably would not have eaten as much as we did. Hindsight is always 20/20, right?

After an interesting evening of drunken debauchery… or as much debauchery as Whitney and I would really ever get into… we both went to sleep. And then we spent the next day puking out dark brown-colored nastiness. Yes, we had drunk far more than the legal limit of vodka and kahlua, but both Whitney and I had gotten far more drunk than that in the past with much less next-day woe. So we both swore off all things tiramisu – the flavor, the color, the smell, everything. I have stuck by that vow. I’m not sure if Whitney has done the same, see her blog (link above) to read her memories and impression of The Tiramisu Incident.

Perhaps we should have sucked it up and dropped the extra $2 on fresh eggs.