Tiramisu Flavored Ladyfingers

The other day I made Greek spaghetti for a company supper, with tiramisu for dessert.  My family loves tiramisu.  As one of our guests said, "It's like eating a cloud".  For those of you who aren't familiar with this Italian dessert, tiramisu is made with ladyfinger biscuits (Savoiardi), dipped in strong coffee and layered with an egg and mascarpone cheese mixture that is light and fluffy.  The ladyfingers soak up the moisture and turn soft and cake like.  I like to flavor my tiramisu with almond extract and imitation rum flavoring.

After the tiramisu was all gone (it doesn't last long around here!), I got to thinking about how I could capture the flavor of tiramisu in a more portable form...like cookies!  So I came up with this Tiramisu Flavored Ladyfinger recipe.  If you've never had ladyfingers, or have only had the store bought kind, you are in for a treat!  These are soft and cake like when they come out of the oven, but if you let them sit out overnight, (if they last that long!) they get crunchy like the store bought ones.  Yum!

Tiramisu Flavored Ladyfingers

4 eggs, seperated

1/2 cup sugar, plus 2 tablespoons

2 teaspoons instant coffee granules

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

1/4 teaspoon imitation rum flavoring

7/8 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon powdered sugar

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

Preheat your oven to 400°.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.  Set aside.  In a medium mixing bowl, beat together egg yolks, 1/2 cup sugar, coffee granules and extracts.  Beat until the coffee has nearly disolved and mixture is thick and light in color. 

In another bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.  Slowly add the remaining sugar and continue beating until stiff and glossy.  Fold half of the egg whites into the yolk mixture. 

Sift together the flour and baking powder, and fold into the yolk mixture, then fold in the remaining egg whites. 

Now, you have a couple of options.  You can put the batter into a large pastry bag with a 1/2 inch round tube, and pipe the cookies onto the parchment, about 4 inches long, and a couple inches apart.  Or if you don't care about having the classic ladyfinger shape, you can just spoon the batter into rounds on the parchment paper.

Bake for 8 minutes.  Remove from oven.  Mix together powdered sugar and cocoa powder, and sprinkle over the cookies.  Cool a while before transferring to a cooling rack to dry overnight.

This recipe is entered in the Culinary Smackdown Battle at http://utry.it/2011/03/culinary-smackdown-battlecookies.html.  Go browse all the wonderful cookie recipes this month!

This recipe is part of the Recipe Exchange at Little House on the Prairie Living. http://www.littlehouseliving.com/2011/03/old-fashioned-recipe-exchange-322.html

This recipe is entered in Sweets for a Saturday at http://sweet-as-sugar-cookies.blogspot.com/2011/03/sweets-for-saturday-9.html