Pavlova for a Queen

Thursday August 21st, 2008

For my belated birthday BBQ I decided to cook a Pavlova - Australian/New Zealand desert. So I had a test run the week prior to iron out any kinks. A Pavlova is a mergine filled with cream, then smoothered in seasonal summer fruits.

For those who do not know the Pavlova was named after the late Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova. The inside of the mergine is like a ballerina's tutu being light, fluffy and airy when the dancer is moving. The actual material of the tutu is crunchy to feel like the outside of the mergine. If you over cook it the mergine will dry up and not provide enough fluff - which is what you want alot of fluff! So to create the perfect Pavlova is indeed ethereal, delicate and slightly controversial like the dancer!

Glad I did a test run, since the first one became slightly overcooked with hardly any fluff inside, infact it was more sticky then fluffy. So back to drawing board after turning down our oven from 300 to 275 and then letting it cool down in the oven after its cooked it was a beautie!

First attempt at Pav - ok - but cooked too high so turned down oven from 300 to 275 (still ate it!!)

Top of the Pav - a tad over cooked not enough fluff inside

BBQ Pav - all dressed up with seasonal fruit including hard to find Kiwi fruit.
Just missing the passionfruit, maybe next time. J did the decorating.

J made me a carmel cake with carmel icing - yummo!

Pavlova's are enjoyed all year round in Australia - but my fondest memories of home are eating a Pavlova on 1988 (Australia's Bicentenial Year) on "Australia Day" - yes Australian's have a day off to celebrate the discovery of Australia - its in the mid Summer,no excuse needed to heat up the BBQ and drink a coldie!

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Pav Recipe:

4 egg whites (at room temperature)

200 g white sugar

Pinch of salt

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1st make sure your mixer and attachment are completely clean, free of grease otherwise the egg white will not become fluffy.

Separate the yolks from the white's making sure no egg shells are present. Turn on the mixer to medium until firm peaks form.

Next gradually add the sugar and salt

Once all the sugar is combined turn onto high for 7-8 minutes and mix until the egg whites become white glossy peaks. The egg whites are done, once you can take some the mixture and rub it between your fingers without feeling any grains of sugar, if you can still feel the sugar give it more time.

This process is critical.

After you have stiff white peaks place it on a tray of any size - smooth it out then get a fork and fluff the top - don't make it too thin otherwise you will not have any fluff inside.

Place in 275-300 degree oven for 1 hour (or more if needed) - it's done when the top is crispy. Leave it in the oven to cool down with the oven turned off once its cooked.

Once completely cool - add cream and top with seasonal fruit.

Eat and enjoy!

Strawberry jam anyone!

Photograph courtesy of Adam Cooper

Sunday August 17, 2008

The other day I decided to tackle our strawberry jam disaster see previous post. After S was down for her morning nap it was time to sort out the jam! We decided to just recook the lot and then add some lemon juice for pectin. The process was very slow and have to admit at one point we both looked at the strawberry syrup with doubt about it thickening up - Well it did, after 1 hour and 1/2 of cooking once the syrup came to a boil and then slowly simmering it started to become thicker, slowly we added another jar of syrup - eventually all were added into the pot.

After the jam had cooked down we let it sit in the pot for a while so we could eat our lunch before S woke up then poured the jam into the sterilized jars for processing in the water bath. S woke up towards the end so we played while J worked on the rest of the jam.

The results are below:

Yummy homemade jam on homemade bread.

18 jars of strawberry jam

Jam Diaster

Wednesday July 16th, 2008

It's jam season, with strawberries on sale 5 lbs for $5.00 I thought what a bargain let's make some strawberry jam. I spent a good part of one Saturday morning preparing the fruit by washing, coring and cutting them up - into chunks since I like good eating pieces in my jam.

J helped when S went to bed for her morning nap - we decided this year to follow the Ball blue book where you add sachet of pectin, in the past we made jam the ol' fashioned way where you cook the fruit for nearly an hour so that it forms a thick, squashy jam and if necessary add some lemon juice; this method has always worked for us.

I guess we wanted to do the quick method and have the jam form by cooking for only 1 minute after it boils then adding it into the jars. Unfortunately it didn't work at all and yes we did follow the recipe exactly and weighed out all ingredients. The jam is not setting instead we have strawberries floating in syrup.

After reading the how to fix it section - it mentioned to leave it for up to 2 weeks and it may form. I'm going to leave it but I doubt it forms. Looks like we will have to recook it till it sets in a weeks time. So lesson learned if it ain't broke don't fix it, the original recipe worked we should of followed that recipe instead of trying to take short cuts by following a new recipe. Oh well.

We now have 18 jars of strawberry syrup!

Our Daily Bread...

Tuesday, June 10th 2008

The other day I purchased a bread maker, yeap I've decided to go modern. I was making our bread, but now that it's summer (not officially but close enough) I didn't fancy having the oven on since it only warms up the house and inturn our a/c will need to be turned up higher to cope. So I gave in and purchased it as a "Mother's Day" late present to me... (well that was my excuse).

The bread maker looks like this and makes cute little 1lb loafs, enough for 1 person to eat toast all week or sarnies for 2-3 days for 2 people.

I've used it about 6 times now and its very consistent with the end result. This is my second bread maker - a couple weeks earlier I purchased a "Big Daddy" bread maker but I found the bread to be a little undercooked in the middle and the crust just wasn't brown no matter how high you selected the crust to be, so back it went.

Below are some photos of the end result. - The 2 smaller loaves in the front are from the "Big Daddy" machine which decided not to knead the dough that day, so I had to hand knead the bread and cook it in the oven. The larger loaf in the background was made with my new machine - it's white bread, I've made whole wheat and white whole wheat, all very yummy!

Within the next couple weeks I'm going to make fruit bread and chocolate bread, I'll update everyone on the outcome. Plus the bread freezes very well and is delicious toasted with jam (homemade strawberry of course!).

Nothing is better then the smell of homemade bread, I love the smell of bread cooking. By making my own bread I know what is in it and so I'm not eating nasty preservatives and it does not cost an arm and a leg to make. I worked it out to be about $0.75 cents - $1.25 per loaf depending what you add into the bread. Now I just need to find a recipe book with good bread machine recipes. So that's my new kitchen gadget everyone.

Happy Tuesday!

Making it from a box...

Wednesday, May 21st

OK so the other day I realized that time was against me and decided to give in and purchase a box of instant brownie mix for a BBQ last weekend. This is unknown territory for me, since J and I make all our meals from scratch!

I must admit thank goodness S was with me, since it forced me to make a quick decision on what box to buy, with her limited patience you have to be quick otherwise she will have a meltdown. So with much hesitation I finally selected the one box I thought would make a nice batch of brownies.

That day after her supper, I took take advantage of her being full, happy and still in the high chair, and quickly grabbed the ingredients needed - 1 egg, water, oil, bowl and wooden spoon. Turned oven on, lined the brownie pan then mixed all the ingredients in a bowl with the box mix. After stirring the mixture 40 times - (that was what it said on the box) I put the mixture in the pan and hoped for the best. Thinking if its crappy I'll quickly pop out the next morning and grab something already made at the store.

Well after it had cooled down, for what seemed like forever, I took a little sample - some broken edge bits - Wow it actually tasted pretty good. Light and flaky on the top and moist and chewy inside. They may not be fantastic like my "to die for brownies" - my neighbors love, but good enough to take along with my tossed salad to the BBQ.

I'm not going to stop baking from scratch but it's good to know that you can fall back on the "box" products when your running out of time.

- Oh and I noticed while at the BBQ that J did manage to consume a couple of my brownies - so I'll give them a 7/10.

1 step forward, 2 steps back...

Saturday, May 17th

That is what happened this week, S decided very firmly that NO lumpy solid food is not for her. So I had to put her supper back into the blender and re blend - grrr. At least this solved the problem of me wearing her supper - yeah!

I know some people think I'm crazy making her food from scratch, but at least I know what she is eating without all the added preservatives and additives that her body does not need.

My production line to make baby food for S happens once or twice a week, by hand - using our hand blender, just boil or steam the veggies or meat. Once its cooked and cooled place it in the blender for a couple whirls, checking the consistency - (now that Missy Moo refuses lumps). Then scoop it into ice cube trays, freeze overnight and voila - instant baby food. Then a couple times a week I take out some cubes of various sorts, fruit, veg, meat and thaw this out and place in plastic containers in the fridge and serve for her meals.

If you opened my freezer you would be surprised by the variety of multi-coloured baby food cubes - applesauce, pears, carrots, broccoli, chicken, turkey, potato, sweet potato and couple others that I can't remember what they are!

Some foods are not worth me making - such as peas, I found this out the hard way after cooking 1 pound of peas and being left with lots of pea skin and only 2 tablespoons of pea mush. The quantity produced wasn't even worth freezing so S ate it that afternoon.

Fruits are a favourite - of course something sweet, applesauce, pears, bananas, peaches and banana yogurt. I'm yet to introduce tropical fruits since they are not in season. I have to admit that sometimes I do fall back on store brought only if it's not worth me making and if the fruit or vegetables are not in season.

The other day I gave S some of my homemade treacle steamed pudding - which J had made. Well you should of seen her face, you would of thought I was trying to poison her. So no not progressing on that front either learning to feed herself.

So far I've learnt you have to be patient, what I would like is not what S would like. Once she is ready I'm sure she will eat lumps and eat finger food. I guess you can't rush these things.

Well like the title says - 1 step forward, 2 steps back, I'm learning to take baby steps along the way - it saves me having to change my clothes several times during the day.