Blueberry tiramisu, baby friendly

This morning I was looking at the pictures from the last summer holiday and, among the numerous photos of my kids, I found this pretty image of a delicious home-made blueberry tiramisu cake (oh, this little piece would have gone perfectly next to my coffee).

The story of this tiramisu cake started with some blueberries (too many) that I bought from the green market (it was already mid September and I was super excited to find blueberries). Well, after my kids ate a fair amount, there were still enough blueberries left to try some experimental cake recipe.  

Tiramisu had been on my mind for a while, but the challenge was to replace the sugar and the coffee in it so that it would be baby friendly. Instead of ladyfingers I used a walnut cake, cut in rectangles, to have approximately the same size (I got this idea of using a nut cake while I was making tiramisu Montignac after the recipe here). Instead of sugar syrup I used blueberries, the juice from the fruits and water used for soaking the dates.

Ingredients:

For the walnut cake:

- 7 eggs (separate the yolks from the whites);

- 200g ground walnuts;

- 6 dates (soaked in water for a few hours)*;

- a pinch of vanilla.

For the filling:

- 250g mascarpone;

- 250 ml sweet cream;

- 6 dates (soaked in water for a few hours)*.

For the syrup:

- 300 - 500 g blueberries (plus the juice that they leave and the water used for soaking the dates).

*If you want the cake to be sweeter add more dates

Method:

Blend the soaked dates (pitted) until smooth. Mix with the egg yolks until they start to get foamy. Add the vanilla and the ground walnuts and mix well. Whisk the egg whites until you get a strong foam and add it to the walnut-date mixture. Using a spoon, stir gently and briefly (so that it remains fluffy). 

Pour the mixture onto a tray lined with baking paper and level it with a spatula (it will raise a bit while baking so the layer can be pretty thin). Bake in the preheated oven at 160 degrees C, for about 20 minutes (until it passes the toothpick test, just be careful not to burn it as it bakes pretty quickly).

Remove the cake from the tray together with the baking paper and let cool. Cut it in rectangles (to have a similar shape as ladyfingers) or any other shape that you like.

Meanwhile, prepare the filling. Whisk the sweet cream until firm (but not too much or it will become butter), add the mascarpone and the date paste and whisk a bit more, but only as much as necessary to  mix all the ingredients together.

Pick the tray in which you want to assemble the tiramisu and cover it in cling film (it should be maximum 1/2 the size of the tray in which you baked the walnut cake). Add 2 tbsp of filling and spread it over the bottom of the tray. Add the first layer of "ladyfingers" (the walnut cake pieces) and pour a few tbsp of blueberry juice and date water on top of those. Add a layer of blueberries and a layer of mascarpone filling. Continue with a new layer of "ladyfingers", followed by syrup, blueberries and mascarpone filling.

Depending on your preferences and the size of the tray, you can add as many layers you want. I prefer to have only 2 layers of cake + the subsequent blueberry and filling.

Decorate with blueberries or other forest fruit and enjoy!