Blackberry Pavlovas: Easy and lovely dessert

Easy, easy, and easy, I can’t say more. If you ever make a meringue but found it soft and chewy inside, that is what we want for the Pavlova. I love this kind of dessert from its soft and rich flavors (the sweet meringue, the unsweetened whipped cream and a sweet and a little sour from the fruit compote). This recipe is from the ........ (it’s on the cover of the magazine, actually when I saw the book this is the first recipe that I wanted to try). The blackberry sauce is very easy to make too, and if you like you can use other kind of fruit but just stay on the sweet and lightly sour taste. This dessert is great for party and many part of it can be prepared in advance, even the whipped cream. Just bake the meringue, make the sauce and whip the cream in the last minute (or buy a ready whipped cream which can be used any time). So, come and enjoy the easy and delicious dessert with me.

Blackberry Pavlovas

Serves 6

4	Egg whites
300 g	caster sugar
2 tsp	white vinegar
2 tsp	cornflour
1 tsp	vanilla extract
500g	blackberries
284ml	double cream / whipped cream, whipped

Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Draw 6 small on a sheet of baking parchment and put it with the draw side down on a baking sheet. Whisk the egg whites until reach stiff peaks then whisk in 250g sugar in large spoonfuls until you have a stiff, shiny meringue mixture. Whisk in vinegar, corn flour and vanilla. Dollop the mixture out on the circles on the parchment and make dips in the center.

Bake for 10 minutes then turn the oven down to 120C/fan 100C/gas ½ and bake for an hour more-the meringue should be a very pale biscuit colour. Cool a little then carefully peel off the paper and put the meringue on a serving plate.

While the meringue is cooking, put ¾ of the blackberry and the rest of the sugar in a pan and cook for a few minutes over a low heat until the blackberries begin to soften give up their juice and the sugar dissolves. Cool then stir in the uncooked blackberries.

Once the meringues are cool, spoon cream into the dips in the centre then spoon over the blackberries.

Adaptation from: Olive magazine issue September 08

Blackberry Pavlovas

Golden Caramel Toffees: Great for giving and keeping

Toffee, toffee, this is a special request too, but who can say no to this kind of sweet. Caramel toffee is not hard to make if you have a sugar thermometer (but you have to be careful when making it, the hot sugar is extremely dangerous, keep the children and pets away and wear a glove). This is a soft and chewy toffee that reminds me of my love for sweet when I was a child. There is a toffee with a soft caramel filling, taste the same as this one and I love it. When I was a child I always sleep with a toffee in my mouth- “It’s bad for your teeth” – my mom always said that but I couldn’t stop doing it.

Anyway I stop doing that now (ok, I’m grow up and knowing that it’s better to chew it when you awake, haha), but I always love the taste of caramel toffee. Actually I start making it not long ago, before that I think it’s hard to make at home. There will be a lot of toffee when you make this recipe but you can take care of them easily by wrapping them up and send some to your friends, I think they will be glad to see what’s inside these colorful wrappers.

The recipe is from ..............The book that focuses on the small size sweet, most of them are not bigger than 2 inches. It’s good if you like to make all this little things, which always welcomed by anyone.

Note: I think it’s better to warp this sweet little thing in a wrapper even the book suggests cut it into pieces, it’s very sticky. So, I add how to warp it with a paper cup (which mean you don’t have to cut a lot of paper for it, ^ ^ , and they are cute in colorful papers )

Golden Caramel Toffees

Makes about 2 pounds 3 ounces (about 200 pieces small toffee)

1	vanilla bean
2 cups (1 pint)	heavy cream
1 cup	light corn syrup
2 cups (400 grams)	granulated sugar
2 ounces (½ stick)	unsalted butter, softened and cut into 4 pieces
½ teaspoon	salt
	24-karat gold leaf (for decoration)
	Plastic cut into 2 ½ inches square (for cover the toffee
	Paper cup

1. Line bottom and sides of a 9-inch square pan with parchment paper; set aside.

2. Split the vanilla bean in half with a small paring knife, and scrape out the seeds; discard the pod. Add the seeds to the cream in a 1½ -quart saucepan; scald the cream and keep the saucepan near the stove so that if the cream cools too much when needed, you can reheat it briefly.

3. In a deep, heavy-bottomed 4-quart saucepan over low heat, blend the corn syrup and the sugar, stirring occasionally until the mixture becomes more fluid and most of the sugar appears dissolved.

4. Stop stirring, raise heat to medium-high, and gently boil until a candy thermometer registers 305 degrees F (hard-crack stage), about 9 to 10 minutes.

5. Add the butter and salt to the sugar mixture, stirring constantly. Pour in the warm vanilla-flavored cream in a slow but steady stream without letting the boiling stop (be careful-mixture foams up and is steamy). Lower heat to medium and continue to boil gently until the thermometer registers about 248 degrees F, stirring occasionally to prevent scorching, about 14 to 15 minutes.

6. Let the candy stand about 3 minutes to allow bubbling to subside, then pour into the prepared pan without scraping the saucepan; allow to cool at least 5 hours.

7. Invert onto a clean cutting board and cut into ½ -inch-wide strips; then cut across the strips to form ½ -inch squares. To apply a patch of gold leaf to each square, use a small artist’s brush. With the brush, lift a tiny patch about the size of an oatmeal flake of gold leaf and deposit it on top of the caramels for decoration.

Note: Before place the caramel toffees on the paper cup place small pieces of the plastic over the cup because it’ll stick to the paper.

Or do it my way: cut the toffee into ½ inch pieces place the toffee on the plastic and place on the paper cup. Twist the top of the paper to hold the toffee.

Golden Caramel Toffees

Golden Caramel Toffees Ready to Go

Citrus Mousse and Lime Curd

Freshly and tangy again, I really love those taste. This recipe had been tested 3 times before I can show you the result, because I change the main ingredient from lemon to lime and lime is tangier than lemon (I like lime because the lime fragrance is great). The first time I made it for my friends, and she said that it’s too tangy so I had to adjust the sugar. After that I sent the recipe (that I already adjusted) to my friend Bake-Aholic, with the warning that the mousse was quite hard to make because the lime juice and cream will separate into two layers if the folding process is not well. So, she teaches me about the way to make mousse that use a lot of fruit juice without worried about the separation. The next test was made after she said that the recipe is great (I mean delicious in my tangy way, haha). I practiced the method that she teaches me.

Now I can show you the tangy and fragrance mousse ,and I hope you will like it as I do.

Adaptation from: Vogue Entertaining and Travel August/September 2008 issue

CITRUS CURD
70g	caster sugar
1	egg lightly beaten
40g	unsalted butter, chopped
50 ml.	lime juice
LIME MOUSSE
50 ml.	lime juice
65g	caster sugar
80 ml	Water
3g	Gelatin powder
100ml	whipping cream

For citrus curd, whisk all ingredients continuously in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water until thick and glossy. Spoon into an airtight container and refrigerate until chilled.

For lemon mousse, place lemon juice, sugar and 50ml water in a saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve sugar.

Soak gelatin in cold 30 ml water for 2-3 minutes to soften, and then stir into the lemon mixture until dissolved. Place the mixture over a bowl of iced water and stir occasionally until cold. This step is important; otherwise, when the cream is folded in, the two mixtures will separate into two layers.

Using an electric mixer, whisk cream just to soft peaks, then gently fold 1/3 of the cream into the lemon mixture.

Gently fold back the lemon and cream mixture into the cream. The mixture will be quite loose.

Spoon citrus curd among 2 x 300ml glasses and top with mousse. Refrigerate for 4 hours, or overnight, until set.

Citrus Mousse and Lime Curd