Collegiate Times

The finished dessert, topped with vanilla wafers.

As a college student, one of my biggest concerns — outside of my actual studies — is balancing my obsession with extravagance and my student poverty. I save obsessively and am more frugal than most people I know (my friends would probably use the term “cheap” to describe me).

But my cushy savings allows me to sort out disasters like my recent laptop meltdown and plan out budgeted world travels. I might be “cheap” for 11 and half months out of the year, but for two weeks I’m queen of the world.

I have a problem, though, and that problem is food.

I love good food. I try to spend only $30 a week on it, and I rejoice anytime I manage to stay under budget. I can’t help myself, I need fresh fruits and veggies and all the materials to make dinners from scratch every night.

And of course, my homemade sweets.

To save money, I look up recipes and modify them to work with what I already have in my kitchen or what money saving substitutes I can buy instead.

This week, I got an intense craving for some tiramisu, and honestly, my meager $30 food budget wasn’t going to cover ladyfingers, unsweetened cocoa powder and coffee liquor.

So I found a decent looking recipe online and searched my kitchen, then hit up the grocery store. I ended up spending about $10 extra outside of my regular spending, but it was well worth it.

I ended up changing several things in the original recipe, but when I served the dish to friends, no one said, “Hey, did you switch the cocoa powder for your boyfriend’s Nesquik?” or “Why didn’t you use vanilla sugar? It has a much more subtle taste than just regular granulated sugar and vanilla extract!”

In fact, no one said much because they were too busy gorging themselves on cake.

So here’s all you need to do to treat yourself and your friends, while not spending a fortune:

The substitutions I ended up making were vanilla wafers for lady fingers, regular coffee for coffee liquor, Nesquik instead of cocoa powder, and vanilla extract and sugar instead of vanilla sugar. In the end, I only had to buy the cheese (which was the most pricey expenditure at $3.50 for each container) and the wafers.

As for the Nesquik, it’s going to be something you’ll probably use a lot more than cocoa powder, so even if you don’t have any on hand think about how often you’ll drink yummy chocolate milk versus howoften you’re going to be doing
extensive baking before you go shopping. Also, one of your friends is bound to have some kind of chocolate milk powder mix anyway.

I grabbed an 8-by-8 inch circular baking pan to make it in, but a pie tin works fine too.

First, I separated the eggs, making sure to save the egg whites in a Tupperware container. After such a sugary treat, a super healthy breakfast of egg whites is just as useful to your health as it is delicious. Immediately place the egg whites in the fridge.

Pour the egg yolks in a large mixing bowl (it’s going to need to be a pretty good size) and then add the sugar and the vanilla. Mix these together thoroughly with either a wooden spoon or a whisk. If you just prefer to use an electric mixer, make sure it’s set on low.

The directions of the original recipe says to fold in the mascarpone cheese (which is like cream cheese but with a smoother texture and no flavor) into the yolk and sugar mixture, but I gave up on folding after five minutes and just carefully stirred it in.

(It might be easier if you have an electric mixer, but let’s take a second to remember that I’m a person who’d rather save three bucks than just buy cocoa powder.

There’s no way I’d dish out $20 for something I can do by hand.)

Now for the fun part:

Pour the coffee you made (you can even use instant coffee, but java is the one thing I don’t skimp on) into a mug or glass bowl. You can choose whether or not you want to try to quickly dip the vanilla wafers into the coffee and place on the tin before they disintegrate, or go ahead and arrange the wafers into the pan and then sprinkle it on.

I chose the latter because I lack the necessary coordination and timing to pull off the former.

Just try to cover the bottom with wafers. You can stack a little if you like, but don’t overdo it or the tiramisu will be too heavy and rich.

Once your wafers have all had their coffee, layer on half of the cheese mixture. Smooth it out before making another layer of coffee-soaked-wafer.

Once you’ve finished, cover with some plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

Before serving, sprinkle the Nesquik on top, giving it that pretty, dusted look tiramisu is famous for.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED
6 egg yolks
1/2 cup of table sugar
4 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 box of vanilla wafers (I use the reduced fat generic kind)
2 cups of coffee
Nesquik
2 8-ounce containers of mascarpone cheese

A version of this article appeared in the Jul 15 issue of the Collegiate Times.