Friday, April 22, 2011

Reeling in the chocolate.


Call off the skywriter. I was wrong about time off.

The last week shown in retrospect on Reeling in the ‘Neen (trademark pending) would be a frantic montage of menu trialling, working the bar in the pub, travelling to London for my day job, whiskey tasting, beer garden planning, thesis writing, moving house, interviewing staff and collapsing with exhaustion onto a dining room chair in our new house which for reasons known only to itself, or the lovely Mr 9BR who put it there, is balanced against the television unit, bereft of one leg.

I am tired. And I would like some chocolate. I have no more words.


I found this recipe for pavlova years ago in Australian Gourmet Traveller. It is just the right side of burnt caramel flavoured. It holds up very well to most fruits you can throw at it, but especially loves banana, especially with sea salt caramel sauce.

Given that I can locate only one half of most of my pairs of shoes and the location of over half my cutlery remains a mystery to me, I have gone with a more simple rosewater cream and chocolate accompaniment. Very ‘Turkish Delight’ but sadly without the lurid fuchsia wrapper.



Brown Sugar Pavlova, rosewater cream, hazelnuts, dark chocolate sauce, rosewater truffles
Inspired by Australian Gourmet Traveller March 2009

Makes 4-5 individual sized pavlovas

Brown Sugar Pavlova
4 egg whites
150gm caster sugar
70gm brown sugar
10gm cornflour
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar (I use this because it is what I always use, but white vinegar would work!)

Topping
400ml thickened cream
Tablespoon of rosewater
Tablespoon of icing sugar
Hazelnuts, chopped.

Sauce
100 grams of chocolate
100 mL cream

Preheat oven to 150c. Whisk egg whites and a pinch of salt until soft peaks form, then add sugar gradually and whisk until firm peaks form and mixture is thick and glossy.

Add brown sugar, whisk until glossy. Fold in cornflour, vinegar.

Spoon meringue onto an 10cm diameter mounds on a baking paper-lined tray and bake for 45 minutes. Turn off oven and cool completely to cool pavlova. I leave mine in the oven overnight. It makes them go lovely and crackled, like the surface of the moon.

Sauce
Heat chocolate and 100mL cream together in a pan and whisk to combine, do not let boil. This should take a few minutes only.

Topping
Whisk cream and rosewater together until thick and glossy.

Spoon cream over cooled pavlovas and top with chopped hazelnuts and chocolate sauce.

Truffles
For each 6 truffles you will need

60g good quality dark chocolate
45 ml cream
1 teaspoon of butter
1 teaspoon of rosewater
Cocoa powder for dusting

Chop chocolate into small pieces and placed into a medium bowl.
Heat the cream and butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring to the boil and then immediately pour over the chocolate.
Whisk until smooth and add rose water.
Place bowl in fridge until firm.
With teaspoons, roll balls of the mixture, this gets messy, I like mine to be very misformed, but you could use a melon baller if you prefer.
Roll each truffle in the cocoa and place on a lined baking sheet or plate.
Cover and place in fridge until firm.
 
Enjoy propped against three cushions of the couch with a lampshade sticking in your elbow.
 

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yummy photos and reipe - though you had us worried for a minute. We read the start of your piece too quickly...

collapsing with exhaustion onto a dining room chair in our new house, which for reasons known only to itself, or the lovely Mr 9BR who put it there, is balanced against the television unit, bereft of one leg.

...and we thought your poor new house (not the chair) was balanced against the TV unit and missing a leg.

Seaneen said...

At this stage, it feels like each of the house, the chair, the television unit, Mr 9BR and I are missing limbs!

Thanks for the comment, will be more careful with punctuation in future.

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Pavlova is awesome!

Some say it is a New Zealand creation, but I'm going with it being Aussie awesomeness :)

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Archie Hurst said...

I love sweets and this just makes me crave more. I think it would be a perfect match up with a vanilla frappe too. I'll definitely create something like this one in my kitchen and enjoy it myself thanks for the recipe by the way!

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