Tiramisu-ish, Vegan or Not

I'm a big fan of tiramisu--it ticks all my boxes--creamy, chocolate, coffee. But the fat content leaves it sitting like a brick in my stomach and I always feel weird after eating it. Plus, I'm not really interested in spending a lot of time making something like that. So I cheat😉 and make my own tiramisu-ish version. It also ticks all my boxes, but doesn't leave my stomach feeling weird and it only takes a few minutes. Yay! It's delicious, too. 😋

I've made this a couple times in the past with ricotta cheese. I can't get that in my local supermarket, so I've made my own, but today I didn't feel like going out and getting milk and then making a batch, so I just made a vegan version with some silken tofu I had in a cupboard. It came out just as good and possibly even creamier. It took about 5 minutes.

I had some leftover biscuit crumbs from something else, so I've been using those, but I finished them today so in future, I'll just make my own by whizzing some biscuits (cookies) in the food processor. Graham cracker crumbs could be used or those ready made crumb crusts in the foil pie plates that they have in the US. I have never seen either of those things here, so biscuit crumbs it is! I don't like to melt a ton of butter and mix it with the crumbs to make the crust, so I experimented and just sprinkled a layer of crumbs in the bottom of a container, spread the filling on top, then covered the filling with another layer of crumbs, pressing gently. When it chills, the crumbs absorb a wee bit of the moisture from the filling and that's enough to hold it all together.

To make the ricotta version, I dumped some ricotta into a bowl, then added some instant coffee (which could be left out), and about equal parts sugar and dark chocolate cocoa (approximately one tablespoon each). Then I mixed with my whisk and poured it over the layer of crumbs as I described above, topping with another layer of crumbs.

To make the vegan version, I used one box of silken tofu instead of ricotta and whizzed everything in the food processor until everything was well blended, then proceeded as above. 

I can't be very precise about the measurements because I am very much an improv cook and tend to just experiment and adjust as I go along, making things suited to our tastes.

It doesn't look very impressive (and the pic is slightly blurry), but it sure is yummy! We both love it and it is definitely something I will make over and over again.Perhaps in future I'll add in some extras--almonds, chocolate chips, coconut would all be good. 

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