My cream mixture feel apart after sitting in the fridge?

Hi, I'd just like to know what I did wrong:

I made the cream mixture following the directions. I used a hand blender to whip the cream but made sure to stop early so it wouldn't curdle (it was smooth and thick but no lumps).

I put both mixtures separately into the fridge to let the egg mixture cool down. I lightly mixed the mascarpone-cream mixture twice during cooling to ensure it cooled all the way in the fridge. When I pulled it out, the mascarpone-cream mixture was liquidy. I added the egg mixture and it became even more liquidy.

I ended up adding some gelatin to the cream mixture and it's sitting in the fridge now--hopefully that'll rescue it. I've made tiramisu before using this same type of recipe and the cream never fell apart like this before. What went wrong?

Karen
  • Posted by: Karen
  • August 10, 2021
  • 2518 views
  • 2 Comments
Easy Tiramisu
Recipe question for: Easy Tiramisu

2 Comments

drbabs
drbabs August 11, 2021
Hi. I’m sorry that happened. I know it’s disappointing. In most tiramisu recipes, you let the mascarpone sit at room temperature while you cook the egg yolk mixture. And then you fold the mascarpone into the egg yolks until the mixture is just blended. Next you beat the whipped cream and gently fold it into the mascarpone-egg mixture until it’s thoroughly blended. You don’t refrigerate anything until you’ve built the dessert. So it seems that there are a couple of things here that could have caused the mixture to break: the recipe itself, which has you whip the cream with the mascarpone, and refrigerating everything before mixing it together, which probably just made it harder to blend. I hope the gelatin rescues it for you.
 
Karen
Karen August 11, 2021
Hi, thanks for the reply! I'll try those sequence of steps next time.

The gelatin actually saved it and worked quite well. For those interested, I used 1.5 teaspoons of unflavored gelatin (powder) and mixed it with warm water, let hydrate and then mixed in the (watery) egg yolk-cream mixture with a hand blender. I think I could've used 1 tsp and it would've been fine too.

However, since the cream mixture was so watery, it sort of just sunk to the bottom of the tiramisu and the ladyfingers floated on top. Not the worst thing in the world but it didn't look pretty. Tasted just like a regular tiramisu.

Thanks again!
 
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