Pumpkin Tiramisu

There isn't a lot that I miss about my old house.......except my stuff.  To be clear, I don't want to have all the space that it takes to house my stuff.  Nonetheless.....I want my stuff.  I like my stuff.  The other day I made hubs go with me to the three storage units that are currently holding all of my household stuff.  (That wouldn't include all of the wine that's in another storage unit in another part of town.  Oh and all of hubs' garage stuff which is in yet another unit in yet another part of town.  Yeah.)  I wanted to visit my stuff and maybe bring some of it back to an already cramped rental.  I don't always think clearly.  So I dug through one of the units and made hubs move furniture and boxes so that I could find my purses and cooking magazines.  I wanted all of my cookbooks too, but then we there wouldn't have been room for us in the rental and we would have had to move in with my parents.  I have a LOT of cookbooks.  So I just came home with four boxes of purses and three boxes of old issues of Bon Appetit, Gourmet (I miss them) and Food and Wine.  I have almost all issues of each one dating back to 1998 and random issues all the way back to '94.  Shush.  I don't care that they're probably all on the internet.  Those suckers have moved all over the world with me.  I love them.

Anyhoo, what I didn't get to bring home were all of my dishes.  The kitchen here is so small and lacking in storage that I'm currently storing serving dishes in two cabinets in my living room and in a spare bedroom closet.  There is No.  More.  Room.  So, when it came time to find my trifle dish for this tiramisu, of course it wasn't here.  So I had to get creative.  As I was looking through the cabinets, I looked up and sitting on top of one of them was this......

 Score!!  

It was a tad big for this Tiramisu, but you know what they say about beggars. 

This was the one recipe from the November issue of Food and Wine that I knew would get made.  I sounded like the perfect Thanksgiving Day substitute for pumpkin pie, which I like well enough, but I think I've made it well known my aversion to making pie crust.  

So if you, too, hate making pie crust, make this instead.  Or, even if you don't mind making pie crust, make this.  It's so damn good,   Creamy and pumpkiny with a just a hint of coffee from the soaked ladyfingers.  Other than the damned overnight wait, it's quick and easy too.  

Here's the recipe:

Pumpkin Tiramisu

Food and Wine Magazine

November, 2014

Ingredients:

One 15oz can pumpkin puree (not pie filling)

1/2 cup light brown sugar

3/4 tsp ground ginger

3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp kosher salt

Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 1/2 cups mascarpone cheese

2 1/2 cups heavy cream

2 cups brewed coffee, cooled

Two 7oz packages dry ladyfingers

Chocolate shavings and candied ginger, for garnish

Directions:

In a large bow, whisk the pumping puree with the brown sugar, ginger, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg and 1/2 cup of the granulated sugar.  Add the mascarpone and 1 1/2 cups of the heavy cream.  Using an electric mixer, beat the pumpkin mixture at medium speed until soft peaks form, do not overbeat.

In a shallow bowl, whisk the brewed coffee with 2 tablespoons of the granulated sugar until it's dissolved.  Dip both sides of the ladyfingers in the coffee and arrange them in a single layer in a 4-quart trifle dish.  Spread 1 cup of the pumpkin mousse on top.  Repeat the layering 5 more times, ending with a layer of the pumpkin mousse.  Cover and refrigerate the tiramisu overnight.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the remaining 1 cup of cream with the remaining 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar until soft peaks form.  Dollop the whipped cream over the tiramisu, garnish with the shaved chocolate and candied ginger and serve.

The tiramisu can be refrigerated for 2 days.