Turning Failure into Tiramisu

I t’s always fun to have your food be deeply appreciated, but I’d never had anyone lick their plate clean in enjoyment of something I’d made — until last weekend.

I was on a deadline. Even though I’d known about this dinner party for a week, it took me a while to decide what dessert to bring (per a request from the hostess). By the time I made said decision, it was really too late to be ordering a Bismark piping tip from Amazon — two-day shipping or not. I pursued my foolish way with a will, however, and hoped it would make it in time.

Cream puffs, a specialty of mine, seemed the obvious choice for this party (thus the piping tip, which helps you fill the shells nicely). It’s hard to resist flaky pastry and homemade vanilla pastry cream, and I’d been making my own version of these French treats for years. But I’d been struggling with them recently and hoped that this Bismark tip would aid my endeavors. Amazon, and my sister’s oven, had other plans, however.

My siblings often request my cream puffs, but, in recent years, I’ve started to notice major flaws in my method. I’ve finally perfected my filling (vanilla pudding, whipped cream, and a dash of almond extract), but the pastry-shell middles are never properly hollow. This makes for gummy, eggy cream puffs, so I was determined to mend my lazy ways and follow a cream-puff recipe to the letter — including the requisite oven-drying time (finished cream-puff shells are slit and tucked back in the still-warm but turned-off oven to finish hollowing out).

Adding to this, I wanted to attempt a cream-puff variation called “choux au craquelin,” which is regular choux pastry (the technical name for the pastry that makes up the cream-puff shell) covered in a paste of brown sugar, butter, and flour. I’d actually tried this recipe a few years ago, but it failed miserably and I wanted to redeem myself.

So, following the recipe exactly, I plunged in — starting with the pastry cream. This is a finnicky, interesting process that I’ve done with varying degrees of success over the years. This attempt was no exception, and I spent a rather long time straining lumps out of the flour/egg mixture before stirring it into my hot milk. In the end, I managed to put a well-filled bowl of pastry cream to cool in the fridge and got my craquelin topping prepped and in the freezer. Both would chill overnight, and I’d make the shells the morning of the party.

Saturday morning, I slipped into the kitchen early, since the shells needed to be baked and cooling before my sister and I headed out to grocery shop. Everything came together nicely, and I succeeded in popping a tray of 24 craquelin-capped mounds into the oven.

This oven, sadly, hates me. It’s gas, which is wonderful when cooking things on the stovetop, but has been a pain when it comes to baking anything. Without using the convection setting, cookies burn on all racks. But if you do use convection, your meat never cooks and your brownies stay gooey. I’m sure it’s a problem with me, not the oven, and that somewhere, someone is yelling at their computer screen about how you shouldn’t use convection settings on meat or that there’s another button I should be pushing. Just call me incompetent — it’s fine.

I didn’t want these cream puffs to burn, so convection it was. Well, they didn’t burn, but they certainly collapsed. Twice.

They looked promising, rising under their nice craquelin caps. I followed every step — even remembering to turn the oven temperature down without opening the door — but to no avail. The shells came out only slightly domed and with a concave underside. So I tried again, thinking that even cream-puff shells without the craquelin topping — I’d run out — would be better than nothing.

But those also collapsed.

I was now down to six eggs, still had to go grocery shopping, and only had a few hours to whip something together before the dinner. Panicking gets you nowhere, and I knew that I at least had the vanilla pastry cream. So my thoughts turned to trifle: Maybe I could use the craquelin shells like pound cake, layer it with the cream, and add some raspberries. Glancing through my recipe-book index for inspiration, my eye suddenly fell on tiramisu.

Eureka.

Would this be traditional tiramisu? No, but skipping the raw eggs and rum worked perfectly, since two of the dinner guests are pregnant. Off to the grocery store I went, and after helping my sister with her shopping, I snagged the final touches my dish would need: cocoa powder and espresso powder. Back at home, I quickly began to assemble the ingredients. Luckily for me, the recipe only recommends that the dessert chill in the fridge for six or more hours, since I had about three.

Tiramisu is a joy to assemble, with its various layers, dustings, and dippings. I sliced the craquelin-topped shells and dunked them in the espresso-spiked coffee, setting half in the dish and saving the rest for the second layer (not forgetting, of course, to taste-test as I went). Then came the first round of pastry cream, lightened with fresh whipped cream. Next came the first liberal dusting of cocoa powder. Then repeat those steps. Lid on, into the fridge, done.

Transportation went off without a hitch, and after a lovely meal at my friend’s home, it was time to taste my plan C. While it didn’t have the traditional tiramisu structure, it still portioned out well, and the use of pastry cream instead of mascarpone and rum gave the dish a lighter, less decadent flavor. The best part? All of my hostess’s young children loved it, asking for seconds, and, yes, one even licked his plate clean.

Later, as the kids were heading to bed, both of the boys whispered something in their mom’s ear. Would I be leaving the rest of the dessert there? Definitely.

After a delightful evening of good food and excellent company, I wended my way home with a full heart and an empty tiramisu dish. And what should greet me upon my arrival? My Bismark piping tip.

I guess I’ll be making jelly donuts next.