I was craving tiramisu this morning.

So I whipped up a tiramisu parfait (aka individual sized tiramisu portions) real quick and wanted to share how easy and fast it is to make.

If you’ve made tiramisu before, you may be able to whip this up in just 15 minutes.

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For those who haven’t made tiramisu before, I’ll cover the three parts of tiramisu and the steps so you can familiarize yourself with the process.

Then you too can make it real quickly for an almost instant pick me up treat! In fact, did you know tiramisu apparently translates to pick me up?

After putting the tiramisu parfait together, leave it in the fridge (like overnight is usually recommended.) But if you really are impatient and want to eat it right away, you can. I mean, that’s what I did right after taking the final photo and it perfectly satisfied that craving.

There are many ways you can make tiramisu parfait. And I’ll go over the ingredients and variations in the ingredients section.

Tiramisu Parfait Ingredients

Ingredients for two parfaits.

1 cup espresso (I used Illy Intenso)
1 tablespoon amaretto (optional)
10 ladyfingers
4 ounces mascarpone
2 tablespoons sugar
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
Chocolate chips (optional)

These ingredients can be broken down into the 3 parts that make up tiramisu.

Part 1: Cake

The cake portion of tiramisu consists of ladyfinger cookies soaked in coffee and an alcohol of choice.

Espresso

For this tiramisu parfait, I used whole bean Illy Intenso. You can use your favorite coffee beans. I thought since illy coffee is roasted in Italy, it would be a good choice for the tiramisu.

Intenso is one of illy’s signature blends. It’s a dark roast that has notes of cocoa.

I prefer to purchase my coffee in whole beans and grind them myself using a Hario Skerton Coffee Grinder.

You’ll need around 1 cup of espresso. You can make this with a stovetop moka pot. When grinding your coffee beans, make sure it’s ground really fine and let the coffee cool down before soaking the ladyfingers.

Amaretto

I chose to use amaretto for this parfait.

It’s an almond flavored liqueur from Italy. The almond flavor origin varies from brand to brand. I used Luxardo Amaretto, which is made from pits of cherries, peaches and apricots. It pairs really nicely with coffee.

Alcohol is optional but if you choose to add it in, you can also use marsala wine (which is traditionally what is used for tiramisu), coffee liqueur like Kahlua or other liqueurs like Grand Marnier.

Ladyfingers

Ladyfingers are Italian biscuits made of eggs, flour, baking soda and sugar.

You can make these yourself, or you may be able to find brands from Italy in grocery stores or online on Amazon.

Ladyfingers absorb liquid quickly. So they soften when you let each ladyfinger touch the coffee and amaretto mixture for just a second on both sides.

I used Balocco Ladyfingers, which are from Italy.

Part 2: Cream

Traditionally, the cream layer of tiramisu is made with raw eggs. But if you do not feel comfortable using raw eggs, there are other variations.

Mascarpone / Heavy Cream

Here are a few options to make the cream:

1. Just heavy cream – you can just use heavy cream and make whipped cream by whipping it with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form.

2. Heavy cream and mascarpone/cream cheese – this is the option I chose for my tiramisu parfait. You’ll mix the mascarpone with sugar in one bowl and the heavy cream in another bowl until stiff peaks form. Then fold in the whipped cream into the mascarpone mixture.

If you do not have mascarpone on hand, it’s not ideal, but you can use cream cheese. Mascarpone is slightly sweet while cream cheese is a little tangy so keep this in mind when you use cream cheese. You can try mixing in a little more sugar.

3. Raw eggs – the traditional way. Separate the egg yolks from egg whites. Using an electric mixer, combine the egg yolks and sugar. In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold in the egg whites to the egg yolk mixture. This is your cream!

Part 3: Toppings

Cocoa Powder

You’ll find tiramisu usually topped with a generous layer of cocoa powder. And you can also find tiramisu topped with dark chocolate shavings. Or you can do both. I put a layer of cocoa powder and some mini chocolate chips on top.