Pavlova All Over

Unlike everyone else, I don't check my email at 10pm so I was pretty much last to choose a recipe: Pavlova or vino. Considering it's the cooking club and not the buying and opening wine club, I chose the Pavlova. I had visions of bells causing Russian dogs to salivate over exotic, sugary Turkish pastries, but a bit of research revealed that Pavlova is actually an Australian or New Zealandian/New Zealandish dessert. The exotic name comes from Anna Pavlova a Russian Ballet dancer which it is named in honor of.

I researched a variety of different Pavlova recipes to compare and contrast. The recipe I was provided seemed to be missing the key ingredient of white vinegar, so I switched to this recipe: http://www.joyofbaking.com/Pavlova.html which had the added benefit of giving explicit longhand step-by-step directions. Pavlova is essentially a giant cake-sized meringue. Its girth causes the inside to remain moist, giving the interior an almost marhmallow like texture while the exterior maintains the crisp but melty texture of meringues. Chefs pile fruit and lightly sweetened whipped cream on Pavlova to break up the almost monotonous sweetness. For our meal, I added strawberries, kiwis, golden kiwis, a sweeter yellow colored kiwi, and blackberries.

Most eaters in the cooking club noticed a distinct gray line along the bottom of the Pavlova but were too polite to say anything. The gray line was graphite from my number 2 mechanical pencil which was used to draw a seven inch circle on the parchment paper. Pavlova is free standing -- it bakes on a cookie sheet with the beaten eggs giving the dessert structure to hold shape. The pencil line was meant to keep the cake somewhat compact. Lesson learned. Next time I'll use lead based paint instead of a pencil. Or I'll draw the circle on the other side of the paper.

Overall Pavlov was a delightful end of the meal, made by its fabulous texture and the nouveau spark of golden kiwis, which none of us had tried before.