kitchen adventure: donna hay's pavlova
the photo was haunting me...
pavlova photo via donnahay.com.au
i had been tossing around the idea of trying to make pavlova for months, but i then stumbled upon donna hay's recipe--doesn't it look divine?--and i looked at it every day, a few times a day, for a couple of weeks. i read the recipe over and over and over. there could be no more waiting. would it be possible for me and my sunbeam mixmaster 2485 hand mixer to turn out sky high meringue? i had to try.
and, as if i need one final "sign" to go for it: pavlova is a traditional australian dessert. this recipe find was made during one of my favorite tennis occasions, the first grand slam of the season -- the australian open.
here's the recipe, and the results of my grand slam experiment:
PAVLOVA - recipe and notes via donna hay at donnahay.com.au
150ml eggwhite (approximately 4 eggs)
1 cup (220g) caster (superfine) sugar
2 tablespoons cornflour (cornstarch), sifted
2 teaspoons white vinegar
1 cup (250ml) single (pouring) cream
½ cup passionfruit pulp (approximately 4 passionfruit)
250g strawberries, hulled and halved
Preheat oven to 150°C (300°F). Place the eggwhite in the bowl of an electric mixer and whisk until stiff peaks form. Gradually add the sugar, whisking well, until the mixture is stiff and glossy.
Add the cornflour and vinegar and whisk until just combined. Shape the mixture into an 18cm round on a baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper. Reduce oven to 120°C (250°F) and bake for 1 hour 20 minutes. Turn the oven off and allow the pavlova to cool completely in the oven. Whisk the cream until soft peaks form. Spread over the pavlova, top with passionfruit and strawberries and serve immediately. Serves 8–10.
* You’ll know when the meringue is stiff and glossy because the mixture will have tripled in volume and stands up when the beaters are lifted.
* The low heat puffs up the meringue while the long cooking time dries it out to give you a lovely crisp shell.
* Store your pavlova, undressed, in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.
some notes from me : i "settled" for the regular granulated sugar that i had in my cupboard, rather than the super fine stuff. it worked just fine.
i couldn't find single pouring cream. i researched the equivalent: light cream. but i couldn't manage to thicken it (now i have a cup of very well-aerated light cream for the morning coffee). i ended up using regular heavy cream. it didn't weigh down or overpower the meringue as i feared it might--after all, it's only 1 cup-- so don't worry about trying to find "single pouring" stuff. (but if you have tips on how to make the light cream into a thick cream, i'd love to know...)
the vinegar: i was a little alarmed that the smell of a mere 2 teaspoons of vinegar would linger after i put the meringue in the oven. i consulted other recipes, including the joy of cooking, and their measurements for both the vinegar and cornstarch were all different, but none had as many as 2 teaspoons. was it a misprint? but no reason to fear: ms. hay's measurements worked perfectly.
ah, the advantage of using a hand mixer: you can feel the consistency of the egg whites change.
i have the same problem with holding the mixer that i used to have with a tennis racquet: the death grip. it makes sense, really. in tennis and baking--especially if you're relatively new to it-- feel is important. the tighter your grip, the less feel you have. i never quite mastered it in tennis (woe is my serve), but it's easy with baking -- i feel the tension right away and just remind myself not to "muscle it." and just as i imagine it would be so in tennis, it's much easier on my arm. i can feel the egg whites build and start to pull away.
this is the fun part: loosen your grip enough, your mixer will make crazy whorls and striations. meringue art.
i made the meringue twice. both times the mixture felt great -- thick, yet spreadable and easy to shape. both of my 10 inch wide circles looked flat in comparison to ms. hay's, so i worried that they would turn out not quite right.
(they rose a bit in the oven...)
one thing that makes pavlova a perfect winter dessert: it needs to bake for about an hour and 20 minutes.
you'll also need to leave it in the oven for as long as it take for your oven to cool down.
i kept the precise baking temperature and time that was recommended.
(based on my experience this weekend: after you've turned off the timer at 1 hour, 20 minutes, don't let yourself be so distracted by the pretty thing that you forget to turn off the oven.)
with both attempts--the over-baked and the proper-baked --the meringue was no longer pure white when it came out of the oven--i wondered if that meant it was overdone? (there's lots of wondering with a first try at a recipe, isn't there?)
here's mine, fully-dressed: maybe not sky-high, but pretty heavenly to taste...
my worrying had been for naught. the meringue that i overbaked was pretty good, the one that i baked properly was exactly as i'd remember it should taste (possibly better): a crisp, crumbly, sugary shell, and a marshmallow-y middle. the cream mellows the intensity of the sugar. the tart strawberries are the necessary foil.
the origin of pavlova is disputed: both new zealand and australia developed recipes at around the same time in the late 1920s, and each recipe is said to have been inspired by the ballerina anna pavlova, who toured the region at the time. the russian ballerina -- known perhaps most famously for her role as "the dying swan" -- endeared herself to audiences with her "frail, etheral look" -- and whether you trust wikipedia or not, based on how this dessert turns out, the name makes some sense.
it's easy to get carried away in the eating. four of us ate half of one in a sitting and probably could have finished the whole thing had we not chosen the route of restraint.
we finished the rest of the batch the next day.
it cheered us a bit (ok, me especially) after watching our favorite player give a full-hearted, all-the-strength-he-could-muster performance during a historic 5-hour and 53 minute battle for the men's championship, and fall short of a victory.
but i was cheered even more by his words and other wise musings on the match.
he'll be back next year -- and i'll make the pavlova again, for sure. it's going to be my australian open tradition. i'm pretty confident both will be better in 2013, but in any case, we will "enjoy."
(if you try making this, i hope you will enjoy, too.)
all photos (except donna hay's perfect pavlova) © anita aguilar
