Ova the Pavlova?

NEVER!!!

You may be wondering why I found myself making Pavlova. The truth of the matter is this... it was recently my Mom's birthday and since I started a new tradition this year of allowing each person to pick their meal for celebrations, I knew that I had some cooking and baking in my future. So, a few days before the Grand Event, I cornered her and asked her to make her selection. Ok, it's not quite as "last meal" as it all sounds. I promise. I was fairly certain what her lunch selection would be, but her dessert selection was another matter entirely. I had a suspicion, but with my Mom, you can never be to sure. Although - as it turned out - I was right! You see, my Mom loves a good Pavlova. Hell, she loves just about ANY Pavlova, so it wasn't long before I had my orders for both lunch and dessert and the date for the festivities was set for Sunday (not the birthday day, but since when have we ever been normal that way). White chocolate and strawberry Pavlova it was :-)

Now. I know that a Pavlova sounds intimidating, but that is NO excuse for buying the ready made bases. Yes, I have done so in the past, but really - those things look like they're carved out of Styrofoam and can probably be used as ceiling tiles. I can promise that if you've ever tried your own Pavlova, you'll pass those sad, sorry "meringue's" in the shop and turn your face away, shaking your head at their weak attempt to impersonate real food. All you need is eggs, castor sugar, white wine vinegar (not your usual chip shop white... focus), vanilla essence (or extract if you'd prefer) and corn starch. To be honest, you don't actually need the whole egg... just the whites, but since they don't lay them separate, you'll need to make do. This particular recipe called for 8 egg whites and 500ml of castor sugar, but it did make 2 layers, so not too bad all things considered.

The first thing you have to do is separate the eggs. Not into "colour shades" as Miss Twinset was so patiently doing when I caught her. Sigh. I'm pretty sure she'd had a few bottles of vino by then, especially as she didn't notice when I topped her glass up with the vinegar! I need to make sure we do new projects earlier in the day to avoid these situations. Now, please don't worry if you don't have one of those "fancy" egg separators. Eggs have an innovative built in system commonly known as "the shell" to aid you in just this type of situation. You simply need to break the egg roughly in the middle and then pass the yolk back and forth from shell half to shell half until all the white has dropped into the bowl that you (hopefully, please lord) put underneath. You then tip the white into your mixing bowl and put the egg yolks into another bowl for use in other projects... don't worry - I'll elaborate in the next blogs. You then beat the egg whites until soft peaks form when you lift the beaters out of the mix. Soft peak? Well - imagine that you've only partially arous... What? Family friendly. Oh... yeah. Well, a soft peak would be ... um ... soft? No edges? Ok, it just means that it's going to be a bit like a squishy cloud. When you take the beaters out of the mix, the peaks that form will sorta "smoosh" (another technical term) over on themselves while still looking kinda like peaks. I suppose you could say that soft peaks are the average 40+ year old boob without surgical intervention...

At that stage, you need to start adding the castor sugar 1 tablespoon at a time. Which I'll admit is a pain in the butt!! Especially if you don't have one of those sexy kenwood mixers (which I'd be happy to test for anyone who'd like to send me one hint hint... all brands welcome) and you have to use a hand mixer. It requires a little patience, upper arm strength and co-ordination, but if you've worked with the Tipsy Tarts (I'm liking that group name more and more) around for long enough, then you've developed the reflexes of a cat and the strength of Hercules... sometimes it's the only way to protect booze and food that's intended for consumption at other places :-) When the mixture has reached stiff peak stage (18 - 25 year old boob), then you fold in the white wine vinegar, corn starch and vanilla essence using a metal spoon (I'm not sure why, but I don't argue with the recipe Gods when they're that specific) - before spooning it onto your baking sheet on your baking tray and shaping it to suit your needs. You can create fun detailing on the final Pavlova by taking the back of the spoon and touching it to the Pavlova to make wave peaks (no boob related metaphor here as I don't want to picture wavy boobs). You put it into the oven at 140 degrees for an hour and then turn the oven off and leave it in there overnight. Yes - you DO need to be prepared ahead of time! lol

The following day - in my case, the morning of the Grand Event - you get your serving platter and place your base on

it. I made a double layer Pavlova (no, I'm not showing off... as I said, I just had that much meringue mix lol). You then take your desired filling and begin constructing this yummy dessert... In this case, it was a white chocolate and strawberry filling, so I melted white chocolate in the microwave (about 2 - 3 min on 60% power) and added fresh cream to that to form a white chocolate ganache which was then spread on the Pavlova base to stop the fluid from making the meringue go soft. The remainder of the cream is whipped to just before a stiff peak (there's that term again) stage. To assemble, spoon your chopped strawberries onto the ganache base and pile them as high as desired. Then cover with the whipped cream and then - if required - add the second layer of meringue and repeat the above steps. It's important that you don't let Miss Twinset or the Other One anywhere near this process or you'll end up with an Eton-Mess... just as yummy, but nowhere near as impressive on the table! I've been lucky so far and only had this problem once. Fortunately I was only practicing, so it wasn't a train smash :-)

You may be wondering why - when there is a whole lunch that was done - I've chosen to start with dessert. Well, too often, we start with the meal and skip dessert and if you're only going to read today's blog... I figured it should be a little decadent!

Tomorrow, I'll cover the meal and if you stick around, I'll cover what to do with those 8 egg yolks too... after all, my Gran didn't waste and neither do I :-)

Until next time....