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Clearly tiramisu is an Italian dessert. I’d call this the Russian adaptation. What makes it so? Instead of ladyfingers, I’m using a basic biskvit cake recipe (you may know it as biscuit). Biskvit is an excellent European sponge cake and it doesn’t get mushy or soggy.
The ingredients are so easy and practical (a non-mascarpone version) and it turns out delicious. The frosting is light and fabulous. This version actually tastes good for a couple of days after it’s made. Hope you enjoy it, my family loves it!
Ingredients for Biskvit Tiramisu Cake:
6 large eggs, room temp
1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted *measured correctly
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Ingredients for Tiramisu Frosting:
1.5 cups heavy whipping cream, very cold
1 (8oz) stick cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
Ingredients for Tiramisu Coffee Syrup & Topping:
1 1/2 cups Strong coffee, room temperature or cold
2 Tbsp granulated sugar
2 tsp rum
1 Tbsp unsweetened Cocoa Powder for dusting the finished cake
Watch How to Make Tiramisu Cake:
Here’s what the previous tiramisu looked like before I updated pictures:
And now, the new and improved:
If you bake this cake, please do tag me on Facebook or Instagram so I can see your beautiful creations! Happy Baking and I hope you enjoyed the video!
Russian Tiramisu Recipe
Ingredients
Ingredients for Biskvit Cake:
- 6 large eggs, room temp
- 1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Ingredients for Tiramisu Frosting:
- 1.5 cups heavy whipping cream, very cold
- 1 8oz stick cream cheese, room temperature
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
Ingredients for Tiramisu Coffee Syrup & Topping:
- 1 1/2 cups Strong coffee, room temperature or cold
- 2 Tbsp granulated sugar
- 2 tsp rum
- 2 Tbsp unsweetened Cocoa Powder for dusting the finished cake
Instructions
How to Make the Biskvit Cake:
- Preheat the Oven to 350˚F. Butter the bottom of a 9" springform mold and line the bottom with parchment paper (note: you can use two 9" cake pans, but keep in mind 2 pans will take less time to bake). Sift your flour.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer, add 6 eggs and beat on high speed with the whisk attachment for 1 min. With the mixer on, add the sugar in a steady stream and continue to beat on the highest speed for 8 min. The egg mixture should be thick, pale yellow and tripled in volume.
- Add 1 tsp vanilla and sift the flour into your batter. Fold the flour in with a spatula just until all of the flour is incorporated. Scrape from the bottom of the bowl to make sure you don't have pockets of flour trapped on the bottom. Be careful not to over-mix since you are relying on the fluffiness of the eggs for volume. Transfer the batter to your prepared pans.
- Bake 30 minutes or until the tops are golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let cool down 10 minutes, then remove cake from the pan and let cool on a wire rack. Once the cake is at room temperature, you can cut it in half to make two cake layers then remove the parchment paper. It should peel back easily.
How to Make Tiramisu Frosting:
- Beat 1.5 cups heavy whipping cream on high speed until stiff (mine took about 2 minutes with the whisk attachment). Don't over-beat it or it will be buttery. Transfer whipped cream to a medium bowl and refrigerate until ready to use.
- In the same bowl (no need to do the dishes yet), beat softened cream cheese and sugar on medium/high speed until smooth and creamy, scraping down the bowl as necessary to prevent rebel clumps of cream cheese.
- Use a spatula to fold whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture until well blended and refrigerate the frosting until ready to use. Fold until you no longer see streaks of cream cheese.
How to Make Coffee Syrup:
- Mix 1 1/2 cups strong coffee with 2 Tbsp sugar and stir until sugar dissolves. Stir in the rum.
Assembling the Tiramisu Cake:
- Place one of the cakes on a cake platter (note: use the prettiest, flattest side for the top of the cake)
- Brush half of the coffee syrup over the bottom layer (a brush provides for the most even distribution of syrup).
- Spread 1/3 of the frosting over the first cake layer. At this point, you can sift 1 Tbsp cocoa powder over the frosting
- Center the second cake layer over the frosting and brush the remaining half of the syrup over the second cake layer and spread the remaining frosting over the top and sides of the cake.
Decorating Your Cake:
- Decorate to your hearts delight. I used the Wilton Open Star 1M frosting tip for the remaining forsting and piped little designs all over the top then dusted generously with a good quality unsweetened cocoa. You could just dust the top with cocoa powder and add chocolate shavings. Chocolate coffee beans would be amazing as well.
Notes
hi natasha, could i use mascarpone instead of regular cream cheese? thanks in advance
Margarita, the frosting will be a little softer but it should still work 😀.
Natasha, I’ve been making this cake since I found the recipe a while back 🙂
I’d like to make it chocolate instead.
What is a good way without ruining it? Thank you! 🙂
Hmmm great question! If you want to make the cake layers chocolate, you could substitute some flour for cocoa; i.e. take out 3 Tbsp flour and add 3 Tbsp cocoa.
Thank you for the easy wonderful recipe. My family loved the cake. I wonder if I put too much of the syrup on the bottom layer as it was rather wet but my family did not think so. They thought it tasted like a expensive European Cake. Do you really use the whole amount of syrup on your cake?
looking forward to trying more of the desserts.
I’m so happy you liked it! I usually use all of the syrup, but you don’t have to. It’s personal preference. It helps to get the syrup on evenly if you keep it in a measuring cup and take note of where the half point is so you know you’ve put equal amounts on each cake layer. I hope that’s helpful 🙂
Hi Natasha, can I make just whipped cream 8n the center other than a frosting? Thanks!
The cream cheese adds nice flavor and works really well here but yes, I suppose you could :). I recommend trying this whipped cream (a.k.a. creme chantilly)
When I tried making this cake the outside started to burn in a short amount of time but when i cut it open, the batter was still raw in the middle. Do you know what i could have dine wrong?
Hi Kristina, did you have your cake baking in the center of the oven and not too close to the burners? To be honest, I’ve never had this start to burn even if I had overbaked it since 350˚F isn’t really hot enough to burn things. It sounds like your oven was way too hot. Did you possibly set it too high? Have you encountered issues with your oven getting too hot in the past? I hope my answer is somewhat helpful. I’ve never encountered that before.
Hi Natasha! How long can this cake stay in the fridge?
Tanya, the longest I kept it in the fridge was three days.
hi Natasha what is different about Russian tiramisu, and could you add coffee in the frosting thanks!
The main things that are Russian about it are the cream cheese frosting and the spongecake base rather than using ladyfingers. I would recommend using a little bit of coffee extract rather than straight coffee which would water down the frosting and not offer much in flavor.
hi Natasha, i was wondering if you ever used mascarpone on this cake? will it work the same as cream cheese?
Hi Alina, I haven’t tried with mascarpone but I’ve had some readers make this with mascarpone instead and reported great results. Mascarpone is a more expensive cheese and it’s not required in this recipe but I think it would work.
Hi Natasha, tried making the cream with Muska pony cheese and it did not work well together. He was very hard to smooth it out on top and to do any of the designs, I guess itmakes the cream two thick and cottage cheese like. Although it would work in the log form of the cake perfectly.
Oh bummer! It’s good to know that they don’t work. Thank you so much for sharing that with us!
8 oz cream cheese is how many grams ?
Hi Shaista, it is 226 grams 🙂
Thankyou
So, I have a pretty bad gluten sensitivity+I’m Russian+nothing will stop me from baking through all the recipes here. I tried this with gluten-free flour (since the bulk of the volume is from the eggs here) and it came out perfect. I also made a chocolate cage around the entire vertical border of the cake and it came out beautiful, lightweight, and deeee-licious. Thanks Natasha!
That is awesome awesome awesome!! I’ve been so curious about that and several readers have asked. I’m so happy to hear that! What brand of flour did you use? Thank you so much for sharing awesome you!!
I used the regular Bob’s Red Mill All Purpose Gluten Free Flour and just made sure to sift it several times as I folded it into the beaten eggs. It turned out awesome 🙂
What do you think about breaking the cake into pieces, dippping them into the syrup, and then layering the cream in glasses? Trying to find a good recipe of tiramisu in cups, but do far where I live I can’t find lady fingers. Any suggestions? Thank you!
I do think that would work well. I’ve seen people make trifle cakes out of this cake base, so why not make it a tiramisu “trifle” like you are describing. I think that’s a great idea! If you make it, I’d love to see how you did it if you post it somewhere 🙂
so I did make them in glasses, for new years party, everyone loved them.
I will try to email you the pictures, i couldn’t post them here
Olga, thank you for sending me photos. I really like the idea of individual portions 😀.
Hi Natasha! Can I use Whip Cool instead of Heavy whipping cream?
Hi Tanya! I haven’t tried that but I think it should work. Just be sure to thaw in the fridge.
Hi Natasa, 1.5 cups heavy whipping cream is how many grams?
It’s about 360 mL or 360 grams.
Thank you! 🙂
Hi
Can I use something in place of the rum?
You can leave it out completely and it will still taste great.
I always use vanilla extract instead of the rum, and it works great too. Pure vanilla extract does contain alcohol, so it’s a great substitute. But using imitation one works just as well….
Your cake looks great. I was wondering if you could freeze the cake with the frosting.
Thank you,
donna
I haven’t tried that and I’m not sure that freezing whipped cream would work well so I probably wouldn’t try. I have, however, placed parchment paper between the sponge cake layers and frozen those. They freeze very well, just be sure not to put anything over the top of them in the freezer so they don’t become mis-shaped.
Wow! Looks so delicious even I haven’t tried it, I get inspired when I see your cakes, they gave me ideas 🙂 thanks!
You are welcome Shene 😀 .
Hi Natasha,
I tried to make this cake today. Can you advise my why did the centre of the cake deflat? I did watch your video and not sure what happened. The cake is cooling now for about 9 minutes and keeps going down….. 🙁
Hi Eva, it’s difficult to say without being there. Did your batter look the same before it went into the oven? Did you bake it right away after making it without letting it sit on the counter too long? Sometimes baking it a few more minutes in the oven helps. Does your oven typically take longer to bake recipes?
I want to make that cake, but my springform is 10.5″. I thought about using 1.5 times more ingredients, so to say, instead of using 6 eggs and a cup of flour, I’ll use 9 eggs and 1.5 cups of flour.
To your opinion, will it work?
I don’t want my sponge cake to be flat.
Sorry for the late reply. I think that would work, but you will need a pretty large mixing bowl to fit all the eggs. Are you using a stand mixer or hand mixer?
already did it (now the cake is in the fridge and I’m in bed).
When I pulled out the baked biscuit, I realized it was a mistake. Should’ve gone with 6 eggs.
Then, I should’ve cut it in 3 layers, but again, it’s me – I made a cut in the middle.
Well, it’s beautiful, I will make a pic for you, so you’ll have some understanding.
I have a hand/stand mixer(small working pony); used a 3L bowl and mixed it for good 12 min. The volume was so great. (like 2.3L) that the pan appeared to be not THAT much bigger than I thought. But now we know 🙂
Doing it as a gift to my friend. All pic’s tomorrow, just tell me where to send ’em.
Thank you!
Thank you so much for sharing that with me Natalie! Now I really want to see your picture! I would love it if you shared it on my facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/natashaskitchenpage or email me if you don’t have facebook: natashaskitchen @ yahoo.com (no spaces)
Would it change the taste much to resemble tiramisu if I used mascarpone cheese instead of cream cheese?
I think it would work great with mascarpone.
Why are you so awesome? I’ve used your site at least 10 times in the past few weeks. EVERY dish that I need is here. Can’t wait to decorate this cake and have more oo’s and aa’s tomorrow 🙂
That’s awesome!! I’m so glad to hear you are enjoying the site and recipes.
Hi Natasha! I have made this cake a lot of times now….and every time its so delicious! I’m so grateful for your site, I have tried many of your other recipes and they always come out great! 🙂 Thank you! The one thing I have tried differently with this cake is that I skip frosting the top, and instead I use your chocolate genache recipe and use that for the top. Then I decorate the top with the frosting. Although I have also used the frosting on the top, and decorated with the chocolate genache. Really great both ways and everyone loves it at my house. Thank you again for such an awesome blog!
Using ganache on top is brilliant! I love that idea! Also, thank you so much for your very encouraging and sweet comment 🙂 I sure appreciate it!
Hi again! Can I use this biskvit recipe and add cocoa powder to make it chocolate flavored? I’m trying to find a good chocolate sponge cake recipe to try with a hazelnut frosting recipe I came across…. And it seems logical to ask you since your cakes are so awesome! 🙂
Vita, yes, but generally when you add cocoa, remove the same amount of flour from the recipe. So when adding 2 Tbsp of cocoa, remove 2 Tbsp of flour. Let me know how it works out :).
Hi Natasha! I loved the chocolate sponge cake version! 🙂 I used 3/4 cup of flour and 1/4 cup of cocoa powder. I made it twice already…. Once with a chocolate hazelnut frosting, which was a bit too sweet. And the second time with this tiramisu recipe (just the chocolate biskvit version), and it’s my new favorite! Goes great with this frosting and syrup! Thank you for all your help!
Oh wow that does sound amazing!! Thank you so much for sharing that with me 🙂