Clotilde, I have a bone to pick with you. Since you posted your delicious recipe for pistachio gelato, I became obsessed with making my personal fave: tiramisu gelato. My favorite little Italian cafe in Culver City has the smoothest and creamiest gelato I have ever experienced. In efforts to get their recipe, I nonchalantly called the restaurant to see if their recipe was def con five top secret. Turns out, it was.
According to the host, getting the recipe was a maybe. An Italian gelato maker comes in once a week to make all the gelatos in house with special Campagnale machines. All the ingredients were imported from Italy. So, unless I could get my hands on some very big (and expensive machines) and transport myself to Rome this weekend, it wasn't happening.
Not to be defeated, I went to Ugo's later in the day and begged the guy behind the counter to slip me the recipe. He again told me that the machines are huge and their gelato has to go through a specific and long pasteurization process in addition to blending the flavors in those blasted machines that I couldn't get my hands on. I then spent a 20-minute talk with a really cute Brazilian guy who (again) told me with a thick Portuguese accent that it wouldn't be possible for me to make the gelato on my own. I begged and pleaded, but no success.
It would seem that the fates are against me on this one. Epicurious doesn't have a recipe and neither does the Food Network. Even David Leibovitz left out my favorite. And like Mission: Impossible, the pic of the tiramisu gelato on my cell phone camera self-destructed after five minutes. Sigh.
So, after hours of dessert lust, all I am left is the sweet memory of tiramisu gelato in all its creaminess, and the fantasy (pictured above) of making it on my own. And like I like to say about some relationships--perhaps this one just isn't meant to be.
