portuguese tiramisu ice cream

The Portuguese have a version of Tiramisu called Bolo de Bolacha. It’s simple: layers of coffee-dipped biscuit and thickened cream with grated chocolate on top. Typical Portuguese – they do away with the marscapone and the savioardi biscuits in the italian tiramisu recipe and replace them with inexpensive and more readily available ingedients. So unpretentious. So cool. I love this recipe because it’s a cake you don’t bake (and I don’t have a normal oven) and it’s pathetically easy and quick to make. I know it doesn’t sound that exciting; but believe me, it adds up to much more than the sum of its parts.

Here’s my version. I make it as a semi-frio/icecream. This is so yummy that I can easily eat a whole litre in one sitting. As a result I will not be wearing a bikini this year.

Ingredients;

A packet of Maria Biscuits (these are the most basic sweet biscuits there are.  Here they cost 35c per pack. In Australia the equivalent would be Arnott’ s Milk Arrowroot. Except Marias are round and not as thick. )
A litre of Vanilla Ice Cream
Caramel sauce: equal quantities butter and brown sugar, cooked slowly until sugar is completely dissolved and colour altered slightly. Add shot of moscatel or brandy or whatever if it’s for grown-ups.
A cupful of espresso coffee.

Dip the biscuits in the coffee briefly and make a layer of them in an ice cream or plastic container (I line the container with plastic to make serving easier) then plop on a layer of ice cream, then a drizzle of caramel sauce and repeat until you’ve filled the container. Try to freeze it for 24 hours before eating, if you can wait that long. You have to slice it to get the full effect.