Pavlova Cake Recipe

Ah…how I dearly miss updating my blog.

Since the new year began, shit got real…I actually had things to do, plans to plan and debts I was going to put myself in. Long story short, I go to George Brown College for their one year pastry program, I am paying for school without OSAP this year, school is everyday, and work is right after school. So this kinda leaves me in an endless cycle of shit I gotta maintain, but hey this isn’t out of the ordinary kind of story right?  (oh adulthood).

Mama’s birthday was this past Sunday, so why not whip up an easy cake for her…funny (not really) story, as I was informing her of me making her a cake, she said “Are you making cheesecake? I love cheesecake, I want cheesecake”.

/face palm.

This was my fault, I was thinking only of myself when I decided to bake her something.

Essentially, I told her too bad.

The end.

Ok ok, no I didn’t say that, Ma would slap me one…so I assured her I was going to make her a cake she was going to like (hopefully)

I wanted to try to make Pavlova for the first time, I read up on a few recipes and it is extremely easy and barely time consuming, it is full of whipped cream and fresh fruits so I figured it’d be a nice light dessert for after the heavy Italian influenced dinner I partially cooked for the night.

Since it was my first time testing the waters with this cake, I underestimated the amount of pavlova the recipe would yield so I ended up with two huge disks of meringue…my cake ended up being enormous. (NTS don’t double recipe)

I added a layer of vanilla custard to the middle layer and had only whipped cream and fruit on top. Since the pavlova layers were so huge, my cake fell under the weight of the toppings and so it doesn’t look super pretty or anything, but from what I understand this is a typical look for this style of cake so it’s all good if it isn’t perfect.

 

Recipe: Yields roughly a two layered cake depending how large you make it
Approximate baking time: prep time, 10 minutes. baking time roughly 50-60 minutes

4 egg whites (have at room temperature)
200 grams sugar
2 teaspoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions
1. Preheat the oven at 375
2. With a hand/stand mixer, mix the egg whites till it gets foamy
3. Gradually add sugar to the egg whites to incorporate into the whites
4. Once all the sugar has been put in, increase the speed to medium/high and whisk until you have stiff and glossy peaks.
5. Sift cornstarch over the egg whites and add in the vinegar.
6. Take rubber spatula and gently fold mixture
7. Once the mixture is done, pour on tray lined with parchment paper and shape and smooth our your pavlova.
8. Pop it in the oven and then reduce the heat to 325 degrees and bake for about 50-60 minutes.
9. Once baking time is done, prop open the oven door slightly to allow the pavlova to gradually cool down.
10. Whip up some whipping cream and dice up whatever fruits to your liking and start to decorate.

I added a layer of custard, but you can add any kind of filling you prefer.

Overall, it’s a great and easy dessert to serve after dinner, it was chewy and crusty at the same time as the outer layer was nutty in flavour and in the middle it was soft and marshmallow like. I forgot to take a picture of the cake sliced up…and the next day it was pretty much all gone *__* meaning i’ll just have to remake this ;)

Happy Birthday Scott

I thought maybe I should start a yearly tradition of photographing Scott every year on his birthday, so everyone can see the ugly aging progression of him ;)

I rented a portrait lens for the weekend for fun, it was an interesting lens…kinda hard to use since I didn’t have too much time to play around with it, the photos turned out…well you can be the judge of that. Scott likes the lens I used because he says “it makes his face look slimmer” hm…hahaha, oh Scott.

The first and the last photos are my favorite shots of the day, happy birthday dearest!

How old does Scott look to you anyways? Feel free to take a guess, and for those who randomly visit this blog post, you can try to guess his mixed ethnicity via comment below ;)

Happy Birthday Perks!

Another year, another birthday celebration! Well, in my case the celebrating is on a halt for now…I’m really lazy with this birthday planning jazz this time, maybe i’ll change my mind later?

If you do any sort of shopping at Sephora, most likely you have been signed up with their beauty insider points system…i’m most definitely a sucker for any point cards, collecting points while spending money? Why not, even if their gifts are small, it’s a nice gesture to keep customers happy.

So on your birthday, Sephora has generously decided to give out tiny birthday gifts! And in this case, I have received my free, delicious vanilla birthday cake scented shower gel. I’m super tempted to lick the soap…but my brain tells me my stomach won’t be too happy later if i decide to.

But wait! I also got another gift, and in my opinion it totally tops Sephora’s birthday gift to me.

The Body Shop will give you $10 any purchase with no minimal purchase of anything! Meaning, if you find an item for $10 and it’s your birthday, you get the item for free :)

The Body Shop has a terrific selection of well priced products, Scott needed new body soap so I picked up the giant sized Satsuma Shower Gel, $15. Such a fragrant fruity and zesty orange…Who could resist? I brought it to the cashier, gave them my card and walked away only paying the $5 difference.

Yay for birthday freebies!