Before I made it, I looked at a lot of different recipes online and found many that used the lady fingers crushed up and mixed with butter to provide the base, and some others that put them directly in the cake. I like the latter idea better and the rest of it was pretty simple. I did a normal cheesecake layer, then the soaked ladyfingers, and finally a top layer of sweetened mascarpone.
Not much else to say about this except I took it to a party and it was a big hit. And I was worried about soggy lady fingers sinking into cream cheese, but fears ended up being unfulfilled.
Tiramisu Cheesecake
crust
½ c butter (125 g)
1.5 box graham crackers or Maria cookies
pinch of salt
Crush cookies any way you can (beat them in a plastic bag, pulse them in a food processor), melt butter, and mix the two together with salt, then press on the bottom and up the sides of a springform pan. Bake at 170C/340F oven for 10 minutes.
cheesecake
600g cream cheese
1 c sugar, seperated
3 eggs
250g mascarpone
½ c marsala or sweet sherry
½ c espresso
ladyfingers
good chocolate for grating
pinch of salt
Mix the cream cheese at room temperature, with half the sugar. Seperate the eggs and whip the whites to soft peaks. Mix the yolks into the cream cheese, and then add a pinch of salt and fold in the egg whites. Pour the mixture into the prepared crust. Now mix the marsala and espresso together, dip the lady fingers in so they are well coated on all sides and moist, and then layer close together over the cream cheese. Finally mix the mascarpone with the remaining sugar, egg yolk, some salt, and when well combined, fold in the egg whites. Pour this over the ladyfingers and spread out evenly with a spatula. Now put in a preheated oven, still at 350F/170C and cook for about 30 minutes. My standard 'doneness' test is if the edges are set but it's still wobbly in the middle. When that happens, take it out and let cool. Store in the fridge overnight and just before serving, grate chocolate all over the top of it. Enjoy.
