DoesTiramisuHaveEggs?AVegetarian'sGuidetoTiramisu

A traditional tiramisu contains eggs in two places — the mascarpone cream and the savoiardi biscuits. Here's a simple guide to where the eggs are, what to ask before ordering or baking, and how we make ours fully eggless.

Tiramisu is one of the world's most loved desserts — espresso, mascarpone, cocoa and those delicate biscuit layers. If you follow a vegetarian diet in the Indian sense, though, it helps to know that a traditional tiramisu contains eggs in two places — and one of them surprises almost everyone.

As a bakery that gets asked "is this eggless?" every single day, here's a simple guide to what's inside a classic tiramisu, and how to enjoy it — or make it — fully eggless.

Where the eggs are, part one: the cream

The heart of an authentic tiramisu is zabaglione — a silky cream made by whipping egg yolks with sugar (careful kitchens use pasteurised eggs), classically finished with a little Marsala wine. That gets folded into mascarpone, and many traditional recipes add whipped egg whites too, for lightness. So the signature cream is, at its heart, an egg preparation.

Where the eggs are, part two: the savoiardi (the big one)

This is the part most people miss. Those biscuit sticks in every classic tiramisu — savoiardi, or ladyfingers — are themselves an egg-based sponge biscuit. So even a tiramisu made with an egg-free cream isn't fully eggless unless the biscuits have been swapped too.

Making tiramisu at home? This is the step that catches people out. The savoiardi and ladyfingers available in stores and online almost all contain egg — it's in the ingredient list, not on the front of the pack. If you want a vegetarian tiramisu, check the label and ask specifically for an eggless variant, or use an eggless sponge instead.

So is tiramisu vegetarian? In India, not by default

Geography matters here. In the West, "vegetarian" usually includes eggs. In India, it doesn't: FSSAI classifies eggs as non-vegetarian — they get the brown dot, not the green one. The default Indian vegetarian is what nutritionists call lacto-vegetarian: dairy yes, eggs no.

By that standard, a traditional tiramisu — egg-yolk cream and egg-based biscuits — sits on the non-vegetarian side of the line. Not because anyone is hiding anything; simply because the classic recipe was written in a place where eggs count as vegetarian.

How the classic is made (for the curious)

We have real respect for the original — it's a beautiful piece of technique. The traditional method: whisk yolks and sugar over barely simmering water until pale and thick; fold into softened mascarpone; whip the whites and fold those in; dip savoiardi into espresso; layer biscuits and cream twice over; chill; finish with cocoa. Every element matters — the eggs are doing the work of both richness and lift.

The good news? Everything the eggs do can be replaced — completely — without losing what makes tiramisu, tiramisu.

Ordering tiramisu? Two simple questions to ask

• “Is the cream made without eggs?”
• “Are the biscuits or sponge inside also eggless?”

That's it — those two cover both places eggs appear. Any good bakery will be happy to answer.

How we make ours eggless at LME

Eggless and vegan baking is where LME started, and it's still what our founder Shona cares about most: taking the desserts the world loves and recreating them for the Indian market, so a vegetarian customer never has to settle for a lesser version.

Our tiramisu cake is a good example. We looked at both places eggs enter a traditional tiramisu and reworked each one:

• The cream: no zabaglione. Mascarpone is whipped with fresh cream — the cream does the lifting the eggs used to do, and it tastes every bit as rich.
• The biscuits: no egg-based savoiardi. We bake our own sponge — a soft joconde, or our eggless sponge for the eggless version — and soak it in strong espresso, so the coffee-soaked layer of an eggless LME tiramisu is genuinely egg-free.

The result is a tiramisu that is fully vegetarian by Indian standards, with all the espresso-soaked, mascarpone-layered character of the classic.

If you're vegetarian in the Indian sense of the word, you shouldn't have to second-guess your dessert. Order our eggless tiramisu cake, browse our eggless and vegan-friendly bakes or see the full menu — everything can be made eggless, and it tastes like it was never a compromise.