Hubby found it highly amusing that I had googled ‘eggless pavlova’ before attempting this recipe.  We were entertaining friends last night and I thought I’d try baking a pavlova.  A good tip from a friend was to bake the pavlova in the evening and leave it to cool and set in the oven overnight (which I didn’t get to do as I only did my food shopping on the day that I was baking). I also forgot to add in 2 key ingredients which I’m sure contributed to a less than perfect pav.  There’s always a next time.

Ingredients

• 4 egg whites
• 1 cup castor sugar
• 1 tsp cornflour
• 1 tsp lemon juice/white vinegar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• double cream, whipped with icing sugar
• strawberries

Method

1. Draw a circle on baking paper using a 22cm baking tin. Place the paper on a flat baking tray
2. Pre-heat the oven to 140 degrees celsius, then turn down to 120 degrees when baking
3. In a bowl, beat the egg whites using an electric mixer at medium speed
4. Once the egg white mix turns stiff, pour in 25g of sugar and beat using the mixer
5. Add in 25g of sugar at a time and continue beating until the mix is stiff. If you flipped the bowl over, the mix should remain in the bowl!
6. Check that the sugar has fully dissolved by testing the mix with your finger. If it is grainy, then it hasn’t fully dissolved, so continue beating
7. Fold in the vanilla extract, cornflour and lemon juice/vinegar
8. Spread the mix onto the baking paper (from step 1) ensuring it stays within the circle
9. Work the mix so that the pavlova is hollow in the middle
10. Transfer the baking paper and tray in the oven for 1 hour 20 mins (at a lower temperature of 120 degrees)
11. Switch off the oven and leave to cool
12. Remove the pavlova from the baking paper, and place on a dish
13. Top it up with whipped cream and strawberries just before serving

Both the Australians and the New Zealanders lay claim to the invention of this dessert. I don’t really care who invented it it is easy but fun to make and just the right balance of sweet, creamy and slightly tart. This next week I am planning more food shoots for stock. More photos and recipies to come.

Ingredients:

6 egg whites

1/2 tsp. cream of tartar

pinch salt

1 1/2 tsp. eanilla extract

1 1/2 cups castor sugar (regular sugar run through a blender or food processor works the same)

1 1/2 cups whipping cream

fruit for topping, kiwis, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries (somewhat tart fruits balance out the sweetness of the meringue)

Method:

Preheat oven to 275.

Warm eggs in a bowl of tepid water for ~20 mins. or until no longer chilled. Separate, combine with cream of tartar and pinch of salt and begin to whip at medium low speed gradually increasing speed to medium high as whites approach soft peaks. Contiune to whip while gradually adding castor sugar. Whip at high speed to stiff peaks and stir in vanilla.

Line a large baking sheet with parchment. Divide batter into 6-10 4-6 inch disks on baking sheet. With back of spoon press into disks to flatten out the center and make a ridge around the edge to contain the toppings. Place in oven and reduce heat to 250 and bake 50-60 mins unil meringues appear dry buthave not started to brown. Cool on racks.

Whip cream fairly stiff. Prepare fruit. Immediatley before serving spoon a layer of whipped cream onto meringue and top with a layer of fruit.

Enjoy!

Mendel Perkins

It really is finally here– yippee. Yesterday I whizzed around the lovely Prahran Market, there they were – rows and rows of peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots and cherries. Yes, it is earlyish and the fruit is not yet completely PERFECT – but select carefully and you’ll love every mouthful.

How to select – well, I always like to be able to smell that divine sent and the fruit should be without any bruises, bumps or tears and have a little ‘give’ just around the stem area.
I love the fuzzy down on peaches, smoothness of nectarines, ripe soft succulence of plums and cherries and that burst of divine heavenly sweetness…. Not much can match it.
Purchase stone fruit in quantities you will use quickly– eat just as nature intended or bake, sauté, poach, pickle or make into jam. Purchase freestone peaches & nectarines for ease when you can and store at room temperature.

So do you need some ideas for peaches & nectarines?  Here are my favourites:

• Bake peaches drizzled with a  splash of sweet wine and a little honey, cinnamon and cardamom for about 20 minutes and serve with vanilla ice cream
• Just before your roast pork is ready, add peach or nectarine halves to the pan. Sprinkled with a mixture of 5 spice powder, black pepper and chilli and roast until warmed through
• Pan toss fresh quartered peaches and/or nectarines in hot foamy butter with fresh ginger and a little pepper and fresh chopped chilli – fabulous with char grilled chicken or pork steaks.
• Toss chunks of peach or nectarine into a crisp green salad and toss through a lemon vinaigrette and scatter with Fetta.
• Serve chunks with your favourite Brie or Blue cheese
• Stir into your favourite muffin recipe, or pie crust scattered with flaked toasted almonds
• Top chunks with good yoghurt,  a drizzle of honey and some toasted nuts

Now Cherries….   From the 20^{th to} the 27^th November at the Prahran market it’s Cherry Week. The Victorian Cherry Association season’s launch is titled, “Love Summer, Love Cherries!” (link will be posted shortly.)
I am presenting some favourite KitchenAid recipes on the Miele Demonstration Kitchen in the market square and there is a fabulous ‘cherry pip’ spitting competition for the market retailers. Throughout Cherry week, 3x KSM150 KitchenAid Standmixers will be given away.

Red KSM150 KitchenAid Standmixer

Stay tuned for more details.

My top cherry ideas:

• Remove the pip and pop into a long flute and top with something cold and bubbly
• Drizzle or coat in dark chocolate and refrigerate
• Serve with goats cheese and crusty bread
• Pop into your favourite pancakes, brownies and muffins
• Drizzle with your favourite liquor and serve with vanilla ice cream
• Top a Pavlova! See Vanilla Snow Pavlova on the Peter McInnes website

   

  

  Vanilla Snow Pavlova

Springtime means picnictime! Bzz gets boozy with some assemble-it-yourself pavlova.

you wont belive this recipe

ingredience

5 egg whites

1 cup castor sugar … or  very fine white sugar

=======================================

crack 5 egg whites .. do not allow any yolk or it wont work … crack in a cup first .. place in large bowl… using a blender mix untill soft white peeks form and stay stiff … slowly ass the cup of castor sugar bit at a time … mixture will look like a big marshmellow texture ….

place in a low deep dish .. like a pie dish not to deep bit big place in a meduim oven for about 20 to 30 minutes cook till golden brown

 allow to cook the crsut will form then .. top with your fav friuts and cream

we have our own chickens so when they lay us lots of eggs i alwasy use the extra eggs for a pavlova .. its easy and fast to make … you can go wrong .. unless you put yolk in it …

 oh oh the bowl must  be completley dry ..one drop of water and it wont work …

Killah Ecco tutte le foto della vincitrice del Killah New Face 2010! Si chiama Anastasia Pavlova, ha 16 anni ed è di Roma.
Complimenti!

Killah These are the pics of the Killah New Face for 2010! Her name is Anastasia Pavlova, she is 16 years old and she is from Rome.
Congratulations!

(*Reader Recipe)

I believe every party should have at least one mystery guest, so as I usually do at the U-C Dinners I asked a couple of my friends to bring friends nobody at the party knew. Nancy brought Pauline, a neighbor with whom she became fast friends after they discovered they were both food writers, and she made this amazing Pavlova with Passion Fruit. I’ve had strawberries and raspberries, but never passion fruit…and was it great! No wonder–Pauline has completed a family cookbook (as well as Young Adult novels)  and obviously knows her way around a kitchen. The tart passion fruit with its gooey texture was perfect with the meringue and whipped cream, and we all wondered aloud why it isn’t used more often in a pavlova. You mustmustmust try Pauline’s pavlova…and also check out www.artsbeatla.com, her site that keeps us all up-to-date on the cultural goings-on in LA.

4 egg whites

Pinch of cream of tartar

1 cup superfine sugar

1 teaspoon cornflour

1 teaspoon white wine (or champagne) vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla essence (or scrape the seeds from a dried vanilla pod)

About ½ pint heavy cream, whipped

Pulp of 2 or 3 passion fruit

1 or 2 bananas, sliced or sliced strawberries (optional)

Preheat oven to 250 degrees for at least 10 minutes before cooking. Have all your ingredients measured and laid out before you commence (mise en place). Eggs should be at room temperature and carefully separated, with no trace of yolk (perhaps make some chocolate pots de creme, sabayon or mayonnaise with those yolks).

Whip egg whites and cream of tartar, building to high speed, until they are stiff. Gradually add the sugar, a little at a time, beating well to dissolve each addition.

Add the cornflour with the last bit of sugar. Meringue will be smooth and glossy.

By hand, gently fold in the vinegar and the vanilla, lifting as you go to preserve the fluffiness of the meringue.

Pile the meringue in the middle of a cookie sheet covered with lightly greased parchment paper, shaping the mixture into as high a dome as possible. Meringue will expand a little bit and crack as it is cooking. It may also sink a bit in the middle once cooled, but that’s the part you fill with cream.

Bake for 1½ hours. Turn off heat and let cool in oven for three hours.

When cool, decorate with whipped cream (lightly sweetened with powdered sugar and vanilla essence) and passionfruit pulp. If you care to go overboard,  top with fresh, sliced strawberries or sliced bananas, too.

Good evening people!

I kicked off the day with a bowl of Vogel’s and a mini pack of apple and sultanas. Crunch crunch!

Packed lunch included this mix of cherry tomatoes, cucumber and spring onion

topped with that can of sweet chilli tuna!

My snacks included a Fibre Fix bar and a BANANA in the afternoon!

I got off work at 4ish and headed straight to my aunt Patti’s to catch up with my Gran and our family friend Wendy who is over from Sydney to help my gran out as she’s just had a hip replacement. She cooked up Spaghetti and Meatballs (YUM!) and Pavlova!!. But first we had some Sue’s Puffs

and some of this

Patti’s granite countertops look so good in photos! Certainly beats my laminate! And the lighting in her house is great – very jealous!

I had a serve of Sue’s Puffs and a few cherry tomatoes. I watched as Wendy made the Pav and placed it on the baking sheet – so glossy!

I also spent a bit of time flipping through this gorgeous cookbook of Patti’s.

While sipping on the last of my Mr Frog Pinot!

Patti made a rocket salad

And here are the Meatballs! Wendy used a mix turkey and beef.

Pasta

Pecorino

Mum and dad brought this French drop (elegantly shown in Patti’s son’s school project, a wine holder!)

My plate

I skipped the pasta and went with a base of rocket salad instead. I also went back for 1 more meatball!

Here is the finished and topped Pavlova

Isn’t it magnificent??? It also tasted magnificent, resulting in me eating double what you see picture below! Ooops!

We finished off with a cuppa and now I need to get organised for tomorrow. I haven’t exercised today and don’t know if I will have time tomorrow either unfortunately. After work I have drinks with my friend Louisa for her birthday. I plan to do some squats and plies tonight though and see how I go tomorrow. If I wake up and feel like it I may head to Spinning tomorrow morning, though that will involve getting to bed in the next 10 minutes…

Ciao!

Here’s the yummy pudding I made for supper last Sunday, if you want to read all the detail, just click and it should pop up in another window large enough to read.

It was very delicious!

Hello you food lovers ! How is your food hunting going on?

Delicious, Scrumptious, Heavenly, Horrible, Terrible, Simply Speechless?

Well what ever party that your tongue have been going through must be one party that is constantly going on. For those who are fasting they must be hunger for food hunting after breaking fast, here’s what I did after breaking fast and prayers. This post will be telling you about the desert hunting that I’ve been going through to satisfy my sweet tooth.

Firstly my stop was Alexis Bistro Wine Bar at Great Eastern Mall, Ampang. The address is Lot 10 & 11,Great Eastern Mall, 303 Jalan Ampang, 50450 Kuala Lumpur. Right smack at the center of Jalan Ampang and Jalan Jelatik, this without a doubt the worst area to be in rush hour, but I have to say, it is worth for every bit of petrol to go here. A 5,000 square foot of space with 150 seats and 24 private rooms 

This is my favorite place to hang out and just meet up friends for occasional catching up as the environment is very pleasing and yet calming for gossiping or discussion. 

At a certain time, Alexis will provide some live music to liven up the environment with the area, so that you could just sit back and enjoy the music while your mouth is partying with the taste buds with all types of flavors. Alexis have wide arrange of food including from Italian, Asian, and Western, so it will be up to you to decide which one is you’re currently hungering for.

First up is their Pavlova, which cost about RM 15 you’ll get a quite a large portion i must say for a single person to enjoy, you got to be either very hungry or very into sweet stuffs to devour the whole one slice of this Pavlova The fruits were tangy and some very tart (especially the blueberries), so the Pavlova wasn’t too sweet. I were happily dug into the lip-smacking combination of delicate, crispy outer shell, soft, marshmallow-like centre, fresh cream and fresh fruits. Overall it was quite a lovely experience tasting the Pavlova, a delight on my taste buds

This is for my bid the best Tiramisu cake I ever tasted period ! Alexis is known for it’s delight in Tiramisu, try and google it up and see how many hits you could get with this wonderful piece of delectable heaven. Their crunchy nutty bits on top and at the end layer of the cake, not to mentioned their soft texture of the coffee inside and the creamy fillings mixed with chocolate bit. With every bite you will feel light on your feet, feeling as if you’re on heaven. Their Tiramisu is simply, how can put this in words, plush and soft. That is why I like their Tiramisu, one cake will set you for about RM 15

The Tiramisu also have an intresting presentation when being served. There will be a little bit of Raspberry sauce on the side of the cake to give it that extra ‘oomph’ may I say, sweet and sour. Best combinations of two different worlds.

Now for the most favorable desert in Alexis from our colleagues little miss Hanis Aleeza. Saying that just by giving her a this one Bread & Butter Pudding, she will never complain if she was never fed with breakfast, lunch and dinner ! This is what I call “guilty pleasure”, as you could taste the warmth of the toasted bread, the texture of the creamy and luxurious custard surrounding the bread and the cold sweet vanilla ice cream on top. Mix them all together in your utensils you’ll get a taste that will run down your taste buds like never before, that if you never taste it before. One Bread & Butter Pudding will also set you around RM 15+.

You can get more info on Alexis other locations and promotions on their website. (click on the highlighted “Alexis”)

Oh what is this? I’m not stopping at Alexis only, if you would want a cheaper alternative from Alexis, you could head on down towards Delicious cafe, this one spesifically is at Dua Annexe, Jalan Tun Razak, Kuala Lumpur and I’ll be brining you another triple threat towards your taste buds.

First up is their Peach Frangipan with Vanilla Ice Cream which cost RM 12.90. One thing I like about this one is that, the peach is very juicy and you can’t get enough of it. The amount is just nice and suitable for the portion but truth be told, it is not my favorite.

Up next is the Peach and Banana Crumble with Vanilla Ice Cream which cost RM9.90. Yet again I’ve think I made the wrong choice of choosing this dish, as it is totally not my to my liking but I would recommend those who wants a deserts that is aren’t so sweet and yet healthy, as it contains oats, nuts, peaches and banana.

This is the one that I enjoyed the most which is Banana Pudding with Butterscotch Sauce and Vanilla Ice Cream which cost you RM 9.90. Unbelievable for me to get such delectable dish for such a cheap price I must say. The cake it’s self you can really taste the banana but the best part is when.. .. ..

You pour the Butterscotch Sauce onto (or you could just dip it into) the cake. The texture of the cake enhances it’s taste of sweet and just heavenly buttery taste into you mouth, not to mentioned they provide you with sweet vanilla ice cream to help you digest the buttery taste of the whole thing. It was simply the highlight of the trip to Delicious cafe.

for more info on Delicious cafe you could head on down to their website (click on the highlighted Delicious cafe)

So my overall verdict:

Alexis: for the luxurious scrumptious deserts.

Delicious cafe: for the lovely environment plus affordable price tag.

Please do check it out and tell me what are your thoughts about it

Reported by:

I’ve never heard of pavlova, unless she is a famous tennis star or a social science experiment involving dogs and a bell.

But in New Zeland, pavlova is a meringue-based desert that food writer Peggy Trowbridge Filippone claims is from another world.

“It looks and sounds very rich, but it is actually quite light, like eating a cloud that melts in your mouth,” she writes on About.com’s Home Cooking blog.

Ingredients include egg whites, cream of tartar, vanilla extract, fruit, sweetened whip cream and chocolate chips. Check out her recipe, then let us know what you think.

(Pavlova image by loloieg, CC 2.0)

I am working on some more writing-related things, and I encourage people who are here for the writing to go to the launch of Offshoots X (which includes my poem, Role Reversal) after the September 19 workshop but since Writing Cards and Letters finished I also have time to play with other things, such as video.

For my birthday this year, I made my favourite dessert… a New Zealand invention called a pavlova. It’s like a giant meringue which is soft in the centre. Since my friends often ask how to make one, I filmed myself making it in time-lapse mode. I also took photographs of the ingredients, mostly in multilingual Swiss packets, which might help people looking for the ingredients in French-, German- or Italian-speaking countries. I then added music and titles to create this video recipe:

Here’s a transcript:

For my birthday this year I made a pavlova, a typical New Zealand dessert. The typical New Zealand recipe involves buying one ready-made from the supermarket… but I live in Switzerland, so I used:

“Aunt Daisy’s” pavlova recipe on a fridge magnet. Extracts from this recipe will be in blue [My comments will be in black… or in square brackets in the transcript]

a small pinch of salt

one teaspoon white vinegar [I used balsamic because it's what I had]

1/4 teaspoon vanilla essence [I used a teaspoon of coffee instead, for a coffee pavlova]

one teaspoon cornflour (cornstarch)

3/4 cup caster sugr (berry sugar)

Note: do not use ordinary granulated sugar [I used raw caster sugar because it was easier to find. It's also tastier in case I forget the vanilla. A mixture of normal sugar and icing sugar also works. My sister, who lost 80kg, says it's fine with half NutraSweet.]

[0 cups Russian ballerina]

4 egg whites at room temperature [so, 4 eggs and a bowl to put the yolks in]

one cup heavy whipping cream

sliced and peeled kiwifruit, passionfruit, strawberries or seasonal berries to garnish

[An oven that does what I tell it. You can't make pavlova in an oven that can't get the temperature right.]

an oven tray with a sheet of cooking paper

an electric food mixer. The bowl should be clean and perfectly dry.

[Sound isolating earphones to block the noise of the beater; NOT to listen to music]

——

Separate the eggs. Beat egg whites. When soft peaks form, add sugar very gradually, putting in one dessertspoon at a time, sprinkling it across the surface with a good interval between additions. [(not actual speed)] Beat until very stiff (any undissolved sugar generally goes gummy and spoils the texture.) Continue beating.

[Beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it. Everyone will want to eat it. Beat in your sugar, beat your egg white. It will go gummy if it's not right. Beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it. Everyone will want to eat it. Beat in your sugar, beat your egg white. It will go gummy if it's not right. Introducing the latest in cakedancing: the spoonwalk.]

Add salt [{it goes a lot thicker at this point)] then vinegar and vanilla [for my coffee pavlova, this means coffee powder dissolved in a teaspoonful of water] a few drops at a time. Keep beating as you do so. Beat in the cornflour. Keep beating until the mixture is really glossy and will stand when cut with a knife [(or spoon)]. Draw a circle as a guide [yeah, right]. Tip the pavlova mix into the centre of the tray. Spread it with a spoon [(or knife)] into a round about 8-9in [(20-23cm)] across, leaving the centre slightly dished (concave). [My mother says to leave the centre convex, so I leave it flat and draw a smiley face.] Place on rack in centre of oven and cook for one hour.

[Then comes the best thing about making your own pavlova… cleaning the bowl and the beaters. If you don't do this thoroughly enough, you'll have to wash the remaining mixture off your hands and off the bowl.]

After the hour, turn the oven off and it’s crucial to leave the pavlova inside until the oven is cold. [(Oven pictured is empty, because I forgot to take pictures after this.)] Remove the pavlova from the oven [(here's one I prepared earlier.)] Beat the cream. Top the pavlova with the whipped cream and nestle the fruit decoratively on top of the cream.

——

tripod

camera

mirror to photograph the camera

Mac to edit the video

Pavlova made by Angela Brett

Eaten by the people playing pass the parcel in the background and the one holding the camera

Video also made by Angela Brett, to try out iMovie ‘09, and take revenge on the camera that once recorded an entire concert from a great angle, accidentally in time-lapse mode

Featured music:

I’m Having a Party by Jonathan Coulton

http://jonathancoulton.com

(used with Creative Commons license)

Tensor (Instrumentality) by Rob Rix

http://robrix.org/

(used with permission)

Barroco by Talking Cure

http://cyrille.lips.club.fr

(used with Creative Commons license)

Beat It by Michael Jackson

(used with chutzpah)

reverse, rinse, repeat

No disrespect is intended toward Michael Jackson, Anna Pavlova, Aunt Daisy, or any other dead or living person or chicken implicated in this video. If you liked the video, please do something nice to their heritors so that they don’t get upset with me.

So, how did I find iMovie ‘09? I’d previously used up to iMovie ‘06, so I was skipping a version, though I’m not sure how much difference that made since iMovie ‘09 has a completely different interface. I found it pretty frustrating for several reasons:

• I couldn’t copy and paste entire titles (which would have been useful for the multiple ‘beat it’s, and in other places) and copying the text from the titles did not copy the transparency of the colour. That said, all of these titles would have been even more fiddly to add and edit in iMovie ‘06.
• The only way I could find to change the length of time a still image showed for, other than cutting a clip (which would have altered the Ken Burns effect) was to type in a duration. But more often than not, iMovie would immediately change the duration to something else; I’d type 3.2 seconds, it’d change it to 3.1 seconds, and so on. So it was impossible to get the clips lining up perfectly with the music. Also, although there is a feature to line up beats in the music with videos, this doesn’t help much with still pictures.

Apart from that, though, it was fun. I’d never created a video with many titles and Ken-Burnsing still photos in the earlier versions, and I’ve never created a more ‘usual’ video-made-mostly-of-video-clips in this iMovie, so I can’t really use these problems as a basis for judging iMovie ‘09 or comparing it with previous versions.

I didn’t put a Creative Commons thingy at the end of this video because it would be complicated to explain… basically, the parts I did, and the CC-licensed music I used, are all under pretty much the same license as the rest of this blog, however the music to the ‘Beat It’ part in the middle (from a MIDI I found on the internet of a song by Michael Jackson) obviously can’t be covered by this since I probably wasn’t allowed to use it to begin with.I couldn’t resist. Sosumi.

Bon appétit!

It's native to NZ/AUS and I found it in a British cook book. Ignore the yellowish strawberry to the left. There's always one that just doesn't fit in a group picture.

I started September with a new mission in mind. To cook more meals at home and eat out less. That’s harder said than done as I have taken such missions on board in the last few months but couldn’t make more than one meal every 4 days. So I knew it was a tough task but I was ready this time around.

I took the pictures with my inexpensive casio camera. So if they don’t look really cool like some other food pictures you’ll know why.

The first dish I undertook was Chicken Cacciatore with polenta (instant), which I made using Zinfandel, mushrooms, yellow capsicum and a can of diced tomatoes. It came out pretty well I must say. I didn’t realize how popular this recipe was until I went online to google on cooking with wine (I hadn’t done it much before).

After browning the chicken which you'll find sitting beside it in a nice corelle plate. Unfortunately everybody's got the same design and my husband really got it before he got me so that explains it.

After adding the wine and letting it reduce, I made instant polenta  for the first time and the result is the picture below.

It looks alright doesn't it? My husband obviously was waiting to remark based on my evluation of the dish. You know I made it and that's a good enough reason for me to like it.

Nevertheless, he said ‘it’s not too bad’. Yeah I should have stuck with my evaluation.

Wait, although this entree came out pretty well, the recipe for the night belonged to my Strawberry Pavlova. Yummy yummy yum. It’s relatively easy to make but you need to have patience.

The strawberries were macerated with balsamic vinegar, vanilla extract and castor sugar. Notice that stray yellowish strawberry. It just doesn't get it does it

- 4 eggs

-1 tsp vanilla extract

-1 tsp vinegar

-pinch of salt mixed in the egg white

-1 and half cup of castor sugar

-2 Tsp cornflour

Beat the egg whites with salt and gradually increased beater speed while adding castor sugar a tbsp at a time until I saw stiff glossy peaks form. Then sprinkled it with vanilla extract, vinegar and cornflour and folded it in. Placed it on parchment paper and let it bake for 1hr and 20m at 250F.

Then I switched off the oven and kept it partially open to let the meringue cool. After that we added light whipped cream to it (ton of it as you can see) and spread the strawberries unevenly to give it a natural look (Barefoot Contessa would have liked it that way).

Looks pretty similar to me. This one my husband liked. Thank god else he'd have to make his way to the kitchen for more meals.

On the flip side it’s a dessert that should be consumed right away and not later as the meringue can become softer. We like it crunchy on the crust and soft inside.

Bon appetit!

Pavlova is a heavenly meringue dessert with a crunchy outer layer and a soft, marshmallowy interior topped with whipped cream and fresh fruit. The dessert is said to have originated in honor of the Russian ballerina, Ánna Pávlova, who visited New Zealand and Australia in the 1920s. Both countries claim to be the inventor of this dessert, and not that I want to contribute to the controversy, but since my husband grew up in New Zealand I stick to the version that Kiwis were the creators.

Most often pavlova is prepared as a large, single dish and then servings are cut and shared. As far as I can tell, just about any fresh fruit or combination of fruits can be served in a pavlova. I prefer to make mini-pavlovas from Nigella Lawson’s recipe from her cookbook “How to be a Domestic Goddess” and top them with berries. These look beautiful and I find the presentation more manageable in individual serving sizes. Also, if any of meringue shells crack in the preparation process, repairs can be easily covered up with the other ingredients without ruining the entire dessert.

This recipe calls for beating egg whites, a pinch of salt and baker’s sugar, a very fine sugar also called caster sugar, and folding in corn starch, white vinegar and vanilla flavoring creating, as Nigella describes “glowing, satiny, snowy meringue.” Next I spooned the meringue in circular shapes onto parchment paper lined baking sheets and created a “bowl” shape in the middle to fill with whipped cream and fruit later. Then the shells bake 30 minutes in a warm oven and are left in the turned off oven for an additional 30 minutes. The shells are a very light brown color when they come out of the oven to cool.

For our pavlova filling, Scallywag and I ventured out to our “secret spot” in our neighborhood to pick wild blackberries. I should have worn long sleeves and pants to avoid getting scratched by the thorns. The end of August is the ideal harvest time for blackberries, which are considered by some as a pesky weed in the Pacific Northwest. Scallywag ate more berries than he picked, but this has become an annual tradition in our family.

The rest is simple. To ensure the meringue shells are crispy, just before serving we whipped fresh cream, dolloped spoonfulls onto the shells, added the blackberries and garnished each mini-pavlova with mint leaves from our herb garden. The combination of the sweet meringue, plain whipped cream and fresh fruit is a combination of textures and flavors that is a luxurious dessert in any season.

Cycling_Chef’s Velokitchen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

© 2009. All Rights Reserved.

It’s the final week before I leave for school, and I’m not all that sure that cooking in a dorm will be easy.  Therefore, I’ve staged a coup d’kitchen, and I’ve been cooking like a fiend.  

Since I may not have access to many exotic ingredients or the time to cook extensive dishes in the weeks to come, I’ve been cooking things that are unusual or things that I have never tried before.  For instance, a couple of days ago, I made congee, the popular Asian rice porridge.

This dish was missing from my life for far too many years.  I have never had something so simple yet so comforting.  Almost never.  I used one chicken and some scallions and ginger to make the stock, and then I cooked the rice in the stock.  The only thing I added to the dish was a soft-boiled egg, which I placed atop the congee with shreds of the reserved chicken.  This dish was ethereal, like the best bowl of oatmeal and a delicious chicken dinner and risotto all in one and on steroids!  I served some kimchi alongside, and the rice was the perfect foil for its fieriness.  Just feast your eyes:

Yesterday, I couldn’t draw any inspiration from the recipes I was looking through, so I went to the store to find some exciting ingredients.  Truth be told, I had my mind set on crab or some interesting cut of pork.  I went to the new Fairway near my house, and I swear I have had it with that store.  I asked for some pork belly at the meat counter, and the man helping me brought me pre-packaged tripe and said that they only had beef.  I told him I wanted belly–not stomach–fresh, uncured bacon.  He then told me to look back in the refrigerated bacon section or at the deli.  Really?  What kind of a store has butchers who have no idea what pork belly is?  Well, I was so fed up that I drove to whole foods, where I had better luck and ended up with Niman Ranch pork belly, oysters, corn, and artichokes.  

When I got home, I chopped up some lemon verbena and sweet basil from our garden and rubbed it with some salt and olive oil on the pork belly.  I then baked it in parchment for an hour.  After it had rendered some fat, I opened the parchment and roasted it for another forty minutes.  Meanwhile, I grilled the corn in their husks and then removed the kernels from the cobs.  I also chopped up the artichoke stems.  I sauteed some shallots with the corn and stems and then added a pinch of flour and some cream, lemon juice, cayenne, white wine, and lemon verbena.  I cooked this all down and then added the oysters to poach at the last minute with their liquor.  

For the whole dish, I baked some big gougeres and cut off their tops.  I filled them with the “chowder” and topped it with a piece of the pork belly, which I seared quickly before serving.  I topped the belly with an oyster and then served half an artichoke with some Vermont butter on each plate.  This was a decadent and beautiful dish.

Yum!  I’ve also made a chocolate charlotte and a berry pavlova, in addition to eclairs and white chocolate macadamia nut cookies!  More later!

Voici une délicieuse recette testée pas plus tard qu’hier et adoptée à l’unanimité!

Je l’ai trouvée sur internet et c’est une recette de Nigella Lawson paraît-il.
La voici telle qu’elle est présentée sur le site http://gloubiblog.canalblog.com/archives/2006/11/01/3052697.html
Vous n’aurez pas de photos des miennes car elles ont été mangées beaucoup trop vite.

Mes remarques:
c’est super fragile. J’avais préparé les meringues le matin pour le soir, attention en les manipulant!
j’ai fait décongeler les fruits rouges en les chauffant légèrement et je les ai sucré un peu avec du miel. Je les ai servies légèrement tièdes sur la crème fraîches avec une feuille de menthe.

Ingrédients (4 pavlova)

2 blancs d’oeufs à température ambiante
125 gr de sucre
1 cc de vinaigre de vin blanc (j’ai pris du balsamique)
1 cc de maïzena
1/2 cc d’extrait de vanille
1 pincée de sel
20 cl de crème liquide
1 sachet de sucre vanillé
Des fruits rouges (direction le rayon surgelés)

Préparation

Préchauffer le four à 180° (TH6)
Monter les blancs avec une pincée de sel, quand il s commencent à être fermes, ajouter progressivment le sucre. La masse doit être brillante, serrée et élastique.
Tamiser la maïzena dessus, ajouter la vanille et le vinaigre, incorporer avec une spatule en soulevant la masse.
Sur une plaque de cuisson, mettre une feuille de papier sulfurisé et à l’aide d’une cuillère disposer la meringue de façon à obtenir 4 cercles assez épais.
Enfourner et ramener tout de suite la température à 150° (TH5).
Faire cuire 45 min, laisser refoidir les meringues dans le four.

Pour la crème fouettée, il suffit de la battre très froide avec le sucre, pour être sûre du résultat, je mets la crème une dizaine de minutes au congélateur.

Pour le montage : retourner la meringue sur une assiette, napper de crème et de fruits rouges.

And oh what a party it was!

Jacob, the other PhD student in the research group, and his wife, had their birthday at the end of July (within 2/3 days of each other or so). So guess what they did? Organised a birthday party…WOOHOOO!

The party was at their house, in the garden (luckily it was decent weather ). The food was all home made(GORGEOUS hummus, great ice-cream…yeps…home-made as well)…even the TABLES were homemade…hehe. Yeps…as you are probably guessing, it was a great and amazing party…disappointed that they will be soon leaving London . But why am I talking about the party? I haven’t talked about arriving there!

So Linda and Irina (the two research assistants) and I had decided to meet at Victoria station to get a train from there (yeps…they live a bit far out…around 15mins by train). Irina and her husband were running late, so Linda and I popped in for a drink at Starbucks. When Irina arrived then we sauntered off to M&S to buy some stuff, and then on to buy train tickets. Off to catch the train…oh NOOO! It left just as we were going through the access gates (mainly my fault as could not find my travel card I guess :-/). This was already 1 hour after we had originally planned to meet, so we had to wait for the next one in half an hour.

One problem…who had printed the instructions to Jacob’s house? Hmm…no one? Oh well…we’ll see! We phoned him for the post-code at least as Irina’s husband had a mapping tool or something on his phone. One problem…not all the roads were marked on this tool! We had to pass through kissing gates we were told…but apparently our idea of a kissing gate was the wrong one…so we passed straight past them! After quite a bit of walking however we finally arrived.

Kissing Gate

OUR idea of a kissing gate

We arrived in the most gorgeous garden I’ve seen in London (probably cos that is the ONLY garden I’ve seen which can decently be called a garden? ). People had already gathered (of course…we were quite late ). But we immediately settled in. There were people from Tate and English Heritage (where the birthday couple work) and of course us from UCL. It was a good crowd.

And besides the food? There were also games…woohooo! There was badminton, croquet (we couldn’t understand anything of THAT…it just reminds me of Alice in Wonderland that’s it!) and even boules!

Croquet in Alice in Wonderland

And there was also a pinata! Having played softball Jacob pin-pointed me out to hit it quite early on…I managed to give it a few good whacks (maybe cos I could see it a bit? )…but being one of the first meant that I didn’t get any sweets…boohooo to that! Not a problem though…there was MORE than enough desserts on the table…there was the most wonderful pavlova…and remember…everything was homemade!

Well…all in all a wonderful end to the weekend. It was good to relax with the UCL people (rather than mainly meeting at uni…even though we get a good chunk of socialising there as well, what with going for coffee or shopping for groceries from Tesco or whatever together…or buying bananas )…and can’t wait to do it again.

Last night my husband and I attempted to make chicken cordon blue. We went to the store, bought everything we needed, and then we came home. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to lay out the chicken so that it could thaw. The recipe called for the chicken to only be partially thawed, so I let it defrost for about an hour. While waiting for the chicken to be ready, I decided we’d also try a new dessert that I found, Chocolate Pavolva [recipe at bottom of post]. Basically it’s a baked meringue, with whipped topping, and fresh raspberries, we opted for cut strawberries. I went about making the meringue, and putting it in the oven, then decided to have something to drink and relax until I needed to start on the chicken. I opened the soda bottle and it exploded everywhere in the kitchen. I had to wash off in the shower then come back and help my husband clean the mess in the kitchen. By the time the kitchen was soda free it was time for me to start the chicken.
As I started to butterfly the chicken my husband asked me if it had thawed enough. I thought it had but he didn’t. I continued along preparing the chicken. I ended up not cutting the cavities large enough to fit the cheese and ham, so they ended up falling into the pan as I turned the chicken. Not a big deal. I cooked them according to the recipe, but the outside of the chicken burnt and the very middle was raw.
If we decided to have this particular meal again, I’m going to try and find one that calls for the chicken to be made in the oven instead of on the stove.

The pavlova on the other hand was surprisingly good. I wasn’t sure about the whipped topping because it really has no flavor at all, but paired with the chocolate and the flavor of the meringue it was perfect. I highly suggest this recipe to everyone. As a bonus it only has about 280 calories per slice.

Chocolate Pavlova
4 Egg Whites
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
1 Cup Sugar
1/2 Teaspoon Lemon Juice
1 Tablespoon Cocoa Powder

For the Topping:
1 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream
1 Cup Fresh Raspberries
1 Cup Shaved Dark Chocolate
1/4 Cup Melted Chocolate

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Whisk the egg whites and salt on HIGH until they hold their shape. Gradually mix in the sugar until the mixture stands firm.
Add the lemon juice and whisk just to incorporate.
Sift the cocoa powder into a corner of the bowl and fold into the meringue. DO NOT OVER MIX!
Pour the meringue onto your baking sheet in an oval shape about 3X5 inches and 2inches tall.
Place in the bottom of the oven and bake for 1hr 15min.

For the topping :
Whisk the whipping cream into semi-stiff peaks and spoon onto top of the pavlova. Sprinkle on the raspberries and drizzle the melted cocolate over top. Before serving top with the chocolate shavings.

I was at a party three years ago (I didn’t bake then) and tasted this wonderful strawberry pavlova that an Australian couple brought.  At that time, never in my mind did I imagine that I could end up making the dessert myself.  Never say never!

The pavlova I made is quite different from the traditional pavlova in the sense that (1) it is layered and bigger than usual (2) I used baking pans to make the meringue (3) I also used brown sugar in making the meringue.  Nowadays you can buy the meringue for the pavlova in the supermarket so I though I’d create something different than what is normally store bought.  I found the recipe in the internet and just went ahead and tried it.

Quick Bits:  The Pavlova

The pavlova is a meringue based dessert named in honor of the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova.  Depending on who you ask, it is supposed to have originated from either Australia or New Zealand when the ballerina visited those countries in the 1920s.