Tiramisu (lactose free)

When I was extremely intolerant to lactose, I concocted this recipe for one of my favorite desserts: tiramisu. It's not like the Cheesecake Factory's, but it's pretty good!


Ingredients:

1 cup of your favorite coffee (make sure it's something that you can tolerate. For example, flavored coffees would be great, but read the ingredients). If caffeine irritates you, try decaf.

12 crushed vanilla wafer cookies, sugar cookies, or ladyfingers. Choose whichever suites you. I know there is at least one roll of sugar cookie dough that you slice and bake yourself that is lactose free. Also, the Pillsbury sugar cookies (the same kind they print with holiday shapes for Halloween, Christmas, Easter, etc) are lactose free as well.

1 cup or so of Cool Whip, thawed (MUST BE COOL WHIP BRAND! This is important. Again, double check your labels, but the generic brands I have encountered contain milk or other products that contain lactose, whereas the Cool Whip brand does not)

Cinnamon- Sprinkle to taste and mix into your Cool Whip, and if you like cinnamon a lot (like I do), use a little in the coffee.


Garnish of choice- If you can tolerate the slightest bit of chocolate, try just a little of grated chocolate or chocolate sprinkles. If not, you can top with a little more cinnamon or another sweet spice. Or be creative. I have problems with milk chocolate, but reading the back of the cocoa pebbles box, I discovered that it doesn't contain dairy, and I eat it just fine. So perhaps crushed up cocoa pebbles? Haha. Have fun with it!

Directions: Place crushed cookies or wafers into bowl, pour in coffee, and allow to soak for 2 minutes. When done soaking, carefully scoop a bit into the bottoms of parfait glasses or serving dish of choice. Top with a layer of coolwhip. Then add another layer of cookies/wafers, and then another layer of coolwhip, and so on, until dish is full. Top with garnish and serve.




Tips: For extra flavor, try adding an extract into the coffee or Cool Whip. For example, if you're ok with cocoa, try getting a chocolate accented coffee, and add a little orange extract into the cool whip. Chocolate and orange, yum-o.