July: Pavlova

Pavlova….roll it around on your tongue. Do visions of this elegant dessert amid a feast set before the Czars flit through your mind? No? What if I told you it’s named after Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova….any feasts or Czars now? Or maybe you think of New Zealand or Australia? Apparently there is a little disagreement over who invented this dish and it’s actually interesting , check it out at https://food52.com/blog/16810-the-dessert-australians-and-new-zealanders-are-squabbling-over . At least I thought it was interesting 😉

Pavlova is mostly egg whites and sugar whipped into a froth and baked. Sounds simple yes? Sally said it’s simple too: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/pavlova/ But this is Eric and me and things that should be simple just don’t always work out that way.

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When whipping egg whites, you can have no yolk, not even a speck or they will not froth like they should. That was my first mistake, and also why I used 8 eggs when the recipe clearly calls for 4. Normally I will separate each egg in a different dish, then add to my recipe. Well, I was either cocky or spacing and decided just to add the whites to the big bowl while separating, and of course the yolk broke on the fourth egg and my whites were compromised. We did have breakfast burritos the next day using the 8 yolks and 4 whites though, so nothing went to waste 🙂 . My first four were at room temp as advised, my second four were straight from the fridge. I believe that was my second mistake and why it took about three times as long to get stiff peaks than it said in the recipe. Eric didn’t have my drama going on in his kitchen, he used room temp and said they whipped right up. Oh, the recipe calls for superfine sugar. Just pulse regular sugar in your food processor and you get superfine.

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Finished texture should be a crispy crust on the outside and marshmallow texture on the inside. Hard to believe but I did achieve that! Eric did not, said his never got a crust but it was marshmallowie in texture. According to google there was probably too much moisture in the air. In Denver? In July? Yeah, not sure I believe that.

We all (me, Eric, Daniel, Jim , and my mom), thought it was really really sweet. Reminded me of the pralines I had in Charleston…so sweet my teeth hurt (not a fan of those). Eric made lemon curd with his 4 egg yolks (show off!) and he said, that, along with the whipped cream cut the sweet on his. Daniel said a friend of his makes chocolate pavlova and it’s not as sweet, so maybe next time. The Cool Whip (yep, you read that right) and fruit also cut the sweet for us and the pavlova was light and fluffy. So light and fluffy, my husband (Jim) had strawberry shortcake after the pavlova because he felt like he hadn’t actually eaten anything.

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I’m going to call this one a tie. I had the correct texture, but Eric went the extra yard and made lemon curd.