The humble sheet pan is the hero of weeknight cooking. Its sleek, spacious surface allows the busy home cook to get a balanced dinner — protein! starch! vegetables! — on the table quickly with very little prep or cleanup. Just chop, drop and roast.
That’s why every week, we’ll be sharing throw-it-all-on-a-sheet-pan recipes from our favorite chefs and home cooks. Whether you’re cooking for yourself, friends, family or meal-prepping for the week, you should keep these one-pan meals in your back pocket — or, rather, your oven.
This week, Katie Stilo, TODAY food stylist and co-founder of The Quarantine Collective, shares her recipe for her favorite whole-family-pleasing dessert: Sheet Tray Tiramisu.
If you're not familiar with tiramisu, it literally means "pick me up" in Italian. And that's exactly why I love it so much. The balance of the coffee with the mascarpone is — *chef's kiss* — perfection. I love this recipe not only because it's so simple, but it's also easy to feed a big crowd. There is always a crowd at my house for dinner because we're a big family (My three siblings, their partners and I are all living at my parents’, so it’s a full house!), and this is always a crowd-pleaser with minimal cleanup.
Whenever I make this recipe, it reminds me of the many times I've ordered it from restaurants growing up. It always seemed insanely fancy and difficult to make, but it really is quite the opposite. It's impressive enough to make for your friends and family to wow them but won't cost you hours in the kitchen. The longest wait time is the chilling in the fridge and, if your family is anything like mine, you will have plenty to gab about in the kitchen in the meantime.
You can also double this recipe to work on a half sheet tray (11-by-17 inches) and feed even more people. Now that's amore! We usually make tiramisu for holidays such as Christmas or Easter, but sometimes it just happens on a Saturday night. It's like having your coffee, after-dinner drink and dessert all in one.
If you're feeling really ambitious, you could make your own ladyfingers to use for this. To make this caffeine-free, use decaf coffee or espresso.
Swapping out the dark rum for something such as Frangelico would be a modern twist adding notes of hazelnut to your dessert. And no one is going to stop you from also drizzling some of your favorite chocolate-hazelnut spread on top of the mascarpone mixture. Top the mascarpone mixture with grated semisweet chocolate to add a visual layer of texture and bring out the cocoa powder in the tiramisu.
Traditionally, this would be made in a small casserole dish and have multiple layers of ladyfingers and cream but I've simplified this in sheet pan form so you can treat yourself any night of the week with a sweet little trip to Italy.
