Italian Dessert/French Sauce - What's the diff?

When I teach dessert sauces in the Kitchen Guy Cooking School, one of the first ones that I teach is Sabayon, a very simple sauce made with egg yolks, sugar and Madeira. It comes together fairly quickly but requires a good amount of elbow grease, as you have to whisk the ingredients vigorously in order to at least double, if not triple, the volume.

We then drizzle it over fresh berries and every student to a person is amazed at what this one simple sauce can do.

The Italian version differs in that Marsala is used instead of Madeira. And to make semifreddo, (a name, by the way, that mystifies me since it means "half frozen") we add cream whipped to stiff peaks, folded into the egg mixture which is now called, "Zabaglione."

We upped the flavor profile, as well as the Italian influence, by adding crushed Amaretto cookies to the bottom of the ramekins and as a top sprinkling, so that when you unmold the dessert, you've got the crushed cookies on the way in and the way out.

While the extra steps to make semifreddo do take time, I promise you this dessert is well worth the effort. It's pretty good before you freeze it, too, but I highly recommend going through all of the motions. Watch the video and you'll see how easy it is to make. The recipe is below the video window.

Zabaglione Semifreddo

4 large egg yolks

1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup Marsala wine

1 cup heavy cream

1 cup crushed Amaretto cookies, plus whole cookies for garnish

Fill a large saucepan with about 2 inches of water; bring to a boil over medium high heat. As soon as the water boils, reduce the heat to low or medium low to maintain gentle bubbles at the edges.

Whisk together egg yolks and sugar in a medium heatproof bowl. Set the bowl over the saucepan of simmering water, making sure the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water. use an electric hand-held mixer or a whisk to beat the mixture vigorously for 30 seconds to a minute. Then drizzle in the Marsala wine as you continue to beat. After the Marsala has been incorporated, beat for 10 to 15 minutes until the mixture has at least doubled in volume and transformed into a dense foamy cream.

Remove the bowl from thereat and beat for another minute or two until the mixture has cooled slightly.

Place the heavy cream in the bowl of stand mixer and beat on high until firm peaks form. Gently fold the whipped cream into the cooled zabaglione mixture.

Lightly butter or spray six 8-ounce ramekins or custard cups. Sprinkle a tablespoon of the crushed cookies into the bottom of each. Divide the zabaglione among the ramekins and sprinkle the tops with additional cookie crumbs. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze for at least 6 hours until completely solid.

To serve, remove from the freezer and let stand for several minutes. Dip the  ramekins in hot water and run a paring knife around the edges. Unmold onto dessert plates by inverting the ramekin on the plate, holding the plate and ramekin firmly and give a firm shake until you hear the semifreddo release onto the plate.

Garnish with whole Amaretto cookies.