Showing posts with label berries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label berries. Show all posts

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Pavlova




I can't believe this worked.

It's a vegan meringue topped with coconut whipped cream and berries. The meringue had the texture contrast you want for pavlova: crisp on the outside and marshmallowy on the inside. 

On the PPK, everyone was having lots of success with flaxseed meringue. I gave it a go, but it didn't work out for me. I think I might not have cooked the flax goop down enough. When I whipped it, it did increase in volume somewhat, and got sort of frothy, but not enough. I added the sugar even though I was doubtful it would work, and nothing much happened.

To the 100g flaxseed goop, 100g sugar, and pinch of cream of tartar of the original recipe, I decided to add another more high-tech whipping agent: Versawhip 600K, along with some xanthan gum. (I used 2 grams of versawhip and .5 gram of xanthan.) And, presto, it whipped up beautifully.

I decided to try making pavlova style meringue. I remembered that some people (Mr Nice Guy Cupcakes, I believe) have had success using agar for marshmallow-style meringue (like the topping on lemon meringue pie), so I added some (I think about 1/3 teaspoon of agar powder). If I remember the Mr Nice Guy recipe correctly, the idea was that the agar would activate during the baking step.

I baked the meringue for 30 minutes at 100C, and then as customary for pavlova, left it in the turned off oven to cool. When it was cool, I tried some, and found that at the very centre it was still somewhat liquid. So I baked them again for 30 minutes, and then let them cool down in the oven overnight. Next morning they were perfect.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Garden salads

I'm not really sure why I planted 12 lettuce plants. We've gone from eating salad maybe once a week, to having shopping bags full of lettuce in the fridge and resorting to lettuce soup to get rid of the stuff.

We have had some nice salads though. The first is lettuce, rocket (leaves and flowers), baby broad (fava) beans, golden beetroot, and mulberries. The second is lettuce, rocket, roasted golden beetroot, and homemade tofu misozuke. I really love that almost all of these ingredients came from the garden.



Thursday, October 11, 2012

Mulberry pie

Thanks to a little urban foraging, we had mulberry pie.
For the filling, I was inspired by the blackberry pie in Vegan Pie in the Sky, but even though I used less lemon than the recipe suggested, I still found it overpowering. Maybe the long cooking time doesn't suit mulberries -- a quick mulberry sauce I made (mulberries, sugar, lemon, heated on the stovetop just until juicy, then pureed) had a much better flavour.

My quest for good vegan pie dough continues. I tried this Serious Eats recipe, using mostly shortening with some vegan margarine, but the crust ended up on the short/crumbly side.