After hurting my shoulder, I had to take a 2 month break from culinary school. Hopefully, I’m fit for the kitchen again, because I go back to school tomorrow. Better start doing more cooking!
Last night, I had company coming that I knew liked dessert. There wasn’t going to be many of us, so I decided to make crème brûlée, a classic French dessert.
Turned out good, but I guess I could have caramelized them a bit more.
Then I had the dilemma of what to do with the egg whites. I’ve seen a few Australian cooking shows recently, and pavlova is something that is always mentioned and held in high regard. So I decided to try it.
I guess it turned out okay. No weeping at the top, but the bottom had a bit of syrup weeping out. I’m thinking it may have been slightly undercooked. It deflated a bit as it was cooling, but that’s normal, apparently.
All pavlova recipes I found on the Internet called for an insane amount of sugar, so I found the most reasonable one and cut it back a bit. Even after cutting the sugar in the recipe, I still found it cloyingly sweet. So for a sauce, I made a tart raspberry and mango coulis. The combination was actually quite good. It should also be served with fresh fruit and some kind of creamy sauce… pastry cream or whipped cream or something. Since we were already having crème brûlé, making a creamy accompaniment wasn’t really appealing to me. Was thinking fried bananas might be nice. Next time.
