Recipe Dairy free Pavlova

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

As always I needed a dairy free version of life. This year we decided against having a standard British Christmas cake because it was simply too heavy last year in the exceptionally hot heatwave we had at Christmas. Typically after making that decision, it was some 15C cooler this year struggling to get above 22C!

I followed the Rob Kabboord's foolproof pavlova recipe but ended up making it a second time after my hubby removed it from the oven when the timer went off at one of its check point times and so it only had 2/3rds of its cooking time. So Christmas day morning saw round 2. It's a good thing my chickens lay lots and lots of eggs! This time round I made a few changes including bearing it for much longer. I didn't use icing sugar as such, instead using raw (brown) sugar that had been through my spice grinder and then sifted.

The area a number of before you start points which he is keen for you to observe...

• 'Make sure your whisking bowl is clean. Give it a light wash with vinegar before use.' I did this and my egg white dish, plus the egg whisk as well.
• 'Have everything ready on the bench. When you start mixing the pavlova, you should not stop, unless your kitchen is on fire.' Well I didn't set fire to the kitchen, and I always have everything ready and to hand whenever I'm cooking anyway.
• 'The whole thing should take less than 10 minutes (not including cooking time) to prepare.' I'm not certain that I took much notice of this one. I did prepare the baking tray beforehand and ensured that I had a tray below the one I was using to act as a shield from the heat because otherwise everything burns on the underside and isn't cooked on the top in my oven.
• 'Make sure the eggs are as fresh as possible.' Not a problem there because I have my own chickens, so my eggs were laid the day before.
• 'The egg whites must not contain any trace of yolk. Separate the eggs individually and bring the whites to room temperature.' I find it easier to do the reverse. Have the eggs at room temperature already and then seperate them. And break the eggs over a different bowl to the one that the whites are being collected into, so if anything goes wrong, you only lose the white from that egg and not all of them so far.

So the recipe and ingredients. This is for everything including the filling. You'll need to prep and plan because there are numerous stages to this.

Pavlova Ingredients
4 egg whites (5 if you are using small eggs)
250g pure icing sugar, sifted
½ teaspoon white vinegar
1 tablespoon cornflour, sifted
Coconut whipped cream ingredients
2 tins of coconut cream (must have no guar guar or xanthum gum in it at all)
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 or 2 tbsp of sifted icing sugar (or ground up raw sugar) to taste
Fresh fruit ingredients
2 punnets of frsh raspberries and/or strawberries
1 punnet of fresh blueberries (red/pink/white/black currants will also work)
2 very ripe nectarines

Method (Prep)

1. You need to freeze the 2 tins of coconut cream. Ensure that they have no guar guar gum o or xanthum gum in them. This is a read the ingredients and aim for a tin that basically only has coconut kernel extract and if possible no added water. Added water is preferable to any emulsifiers though because they prevent it from separating out and that is exactly what we are after here. The coconut cream needs to be frozen overnight if possible.
2. Also get the fruit out and allow it to warm up to room temperature.

Method (Pavlova)

1. Preheat the oven to its hottest temperature.
2. Prepare your baking tray and line with greaseproof paper or equivalent. Ensure it doesn't move off the baking tray by adding a tiny amount of oil between it and the tray.
3. Beat the egg whites (must be at room temperature) on a medium setting until they form soft peaks. Ensure that the egg whites on the bottom of the bowl are also well beaten. You should see plenty of beaten egg white inside the egg whisk at the dame height as the egg white in the bowl.
4. Once the eggs whites have reached this stage, without stopping the whisk, add the (icing) sugar quickly to the whites (but not too fast as to cause a cloud of icing sugar dust!). Continue beating the mixture for a full minute on maximum, then drop the speed back down to medium and allow the mixture to thicken add the sugar is dissolved by the whites. Mine took a couple more minutes of breathing but did go. You'll have a nice thick egg white mixture that is now glossy and smooth in appearance. It should rash what is known as the ribbon stage. If you turn the mixer off and using a clean spoon lift a spoonful of mixture and pour in back into the egg white running it across the surface as you do. The mixture should stay as a ribbon across the surface and not sink back into the egg whites.
5. Now add the vinegar and beat the mixture for a few more seconds (max 10 seconds), now sprinkling the cornflour (I didn't have any so used plain white flour instead) across the surface of the egg white mixture and fold into the mixture carefully. Make no more than 6 folds to mix it in.
6. Now pour the mixture into the baking sheet/greaseproof paper into one big like in the middle and quickly spread it out a touch.
7. Put it into the oven and drop the temperature to 120C, gas mark 1/2 and don't touch it for the first hour minimum. It should take 90 minutes or so, but you don't want any browning to occur, so keep the base away from the heat dose of you have an uneven oven like I do (hence putting in another sheet below it to act as a shield which works really well).
   
   
   
   
8. When done it will have a firm crisp top and bottom, not coloured at all, but still be like marshmallow inside. Allow it to cool to room temperature before continuing.

Method (Coconut Whipped Cream)

1. Take the tinned coconut cream of of the freezer and open the cans at the base and carefully tip out any water/liquid. You only want to keep the kernel extract for this recipe.
2. Quickly beat the frozen coconut kernel extract with an egg whisk incorporating as much air into it as possible.
3. Gradually add in the sugar to taste. Now beat in the vanilla essence and return the whole lot to the fridge and allow it to stand. It should thicken if things have gone to plan. But even if it hasn't you can still use it for the pavlova. It will just not keep as well.

Method (Fruit)

1. Wash the fruit and dry it. Pick over the blueberries and remove all the stems.
2. Remove half of the blueberries and set them aside. Now put the remaining half into either a spice grinder or a food processor and process until it's a purée. Seive the purée using a teaspoon to work the mixture through the seive removing the pulp and seeds.
3. Gently mash a few of the raspberries with the back of a fork to soften.
4. Cut up the nectarines into raspberry sized pieces.

Method (Assembly)

1. Once the meringue is cold, remove it from the greaseproof paper and put it onto the serving dish.
2. Carefully cut the top off leaving a rim to hold fruit, cream and pureed berries in the pavlova. The top will inevitably break so don't worry about that!
3. Now put half of the fruit (nectarines included) into pavlova, put half of the coconut cream in (or as much as covers all of the fruit and meringue), add the remaining fruit next, then the fruit purée and top off with the last of the coconut cream (or add much as you feel necessary, I didn't use all of it with my pavlova)
4. Finally carefully place the meringue on top of everything!
5. If you want to, you can dust with icing sugar but I didn't.

Serving it needs a sharp knife and steady hand. One of those was missing when my hubby served!

 

[Francesca]

@SatNavSaysStraightOn

Wow .. Looks fanstastic ! Definitely quite trendy too, as many Dessert Designers or Pastry Chefs created this "cracked" chipped look on their plated desserts.

Merits excellence ..

Have a lovely day ..