Individual Fruit Pavlova’s with Peach and Raspberry

Firstly I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas, I know I did and if you did as much cooking as me I am sure your fridge is as full of leftovers too! I did so much cooking over Christmas I did not know when to start when putting my recipes here but in the end I decided to start with dessert! This recipe for meringue has actually been passed to me by my boyfriend’s mum and if I do it to half of her standards I would be proud of my attempts, before eating her pavlova I did not even supposedly like pavlova! I have done it a few times with varying results but after deciding that it would be dessert on Christmas day I wanted to practice and play with the toppings so I could put my own mark on it. So here is my recipe for Individual Fruit Pavlova’s with Peach and Raspberry’s:

Ingredients

• 60z of Sugar
• 3 Egg Whites
• 1tbsp of Lemon Juice
• 200ml of Whipping Cream
• 2tbsp of Icing Sugar
• 1tsp of Vanilla Extract
• 250g of Raspberry’s
• 3 Peaches (with the skin and stone removed and chopped into chunks)
• 3tbsp of Caster Sugar

Individual Meringues Ready for the Oven

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 150C
2. Separate the egg whites into a large bowl
3. Whisk until the egg whites are stiff (should be able to turn upside down without movement)
4. Add the sugar in stages through a sieve whilst continuing to whisk until all sugar has been added and the mixture is still stiff
5. Finally add the lemon juice and whisk again
6. Now carefully spoon out the mixture out (onto a baking tray lined with baking paper) into 4 individual circles then build up the edge of the circles with the mixture to create a well in the middle of your meringue
7. Put into the oven and turn the heat down to 130c
8. After 45 minutes turn the oven off but leave the meringue in the oven for at least 3 hours (overnight is better)
9. Once ready to serve whip your cream together with the icing sugar and vanilla extract and fill the middle of your meringues with the cream
10. Then finally for the fruit filling place the raspberry’s, peaches and sugar into a small saucepan and put on a low heat for 7/8 minutes until the sugar and raspberry’s form a sauce and the peach has softened
11. Then pour over the cream and enjoy

Individual Fruit Pavlova’s with Peach and Raspberry

These Individual Fruit Pavlova’s with Peach and Raspberry were made as a test run for Christmas day and on this attempt they were truly delicious and the recipe worked exactly as it should, however in truth the attempt for Christmas day did not go to plan. My meringue for a reason I am not quite sure of failed, big time, so I had to improvise and used the same ingredients as above but made individual Eton Mess’s for everyone.

Individual Eton Mess

Which luckily tasted just as great and avoided me having to come up with another dessert at short notice. I am lucky that this was the worst thing to happen whilst cooking this Christmas, I hope all of yours went just as well!

Chocolate Tiffin Bar

Due to the excitement of the final group stages of Euro 2012 and Germany playing last night, we unfortunately were not having dinner with our friends. Which to be honest I was mainly disappointed about as I wanted to make my first apple crumble and custard but that will now be saved for a later date. So instead I decided not to make anything for dessert this week, which was met by a sad face of my boyfriend who said ‘we (not him) can still make something yummy just for us) so here is it, Chocolate Tiffin Bar;

Ingredients

• 200g of Digestive Biscuits
• 200g of Milk Chocolate
• 100g of Walnuts
• 100g of Almonds
• 65g of Ready Made Meringue
• 150g of Unsalted Butter
• 100g of Mini Marshmallows
• 1tbsp of Golden Syrup

My Set Chocolate Tiffin Bar

Method

1. Firstly line a large plastic container (around 20cmx30cm) with cling film, leaving plenty of extra film around the edges to help turn out your tiffin when its set
2. Break the biscuits up into small pieces in a large bowl
3. Add the walnuts, almonds and marshmallows and mix together
4. Put the chocolate, butter and broken up meringue into a glass bowl and put on a low heat over a pan of simmering water until the butter and chocolate are almost melted
5. At this point add the golden syrup and stir until thoroughly melted
6. Combine the biscuit/nut mix and the chocolate and stir thoroughly ensuring that all ingredients are covered in chocolate
7. Pour the mixture into the line plastic container and push down to form a solid bar
8. Place in into the fridge until it has set
9. After it is completely set turn the tiffin out of the container onto a plate and slice into chunky slices ready to serve

I have a few recommendations for anyone making this; firstly buy peeled almonds, secondly, prepare everything before you start, it is fairly simple to make but I found myself in a rush at times during cooking and finally, make this recipe it is amazing!

The only place I have every tried tiffin is in coffee shops and I am usually disappointed to find cherries or raisins in them, so by making it at home I can put all of my favourite things in them to make a truly delicious dessert or snack that can be kept in the cupboard to enjoy all week long. The tiffin turned out delicious and would actually be great to make with kids as there is no baking involved, however be sure to only let them have a small piece as the sugar levels in this tasty treat are really high!

If you are watching the waistline (aren’t we all) this is not the best thing to enjoy however it is so rich and chocolatey that after one small piece I was satisfied so I like the idea of keeping it in my cupboard to enjoy as a naughty but rewarding treat!

Eton Less Mess

This weeks dinner party dessert was a trifle come Eton mess concoction that I juist made up, however it tasted delicious. I have only attempted to make meringue once since I was taught my boyfriend’s mum who is the queen of delicious meringue. The last attempt was successful; and tasted great but I was feeling a bit more inventive this weekend so I went for something a little different.

My Eton Mess/Trifle

This was the final result and as you can see I layered the pieces of broken meringue, whipped cream, strawberry’s and kiwi to make a trifle style dessert, even though my aim was an Eton mess (in reality I did not know how to make that) but regardless it was really yummy and this is how I made it;

Ingredients

• 4 Egg Whites
• 8oz of Sugar
• 1 tbsp of Lemon Juice
• 400ml of Whipping Cream
• 2 Kiwis
• 250g of Strawberrys

My Meringue Ready to go into the Oven

Method

1. Pre heat the oven to 150
2. Separate the egg whites into a large bowl
3. Whisk until stiff (use the holding over head test)
4. Add the sugar in stages through a sieve whilst continuing to stir, until all the sugar has been added and the mixture is still stiff
5. Add the lemon juice and whisk again
6. Pour the mixture onto a baking tray lined with baking paper
7. Put into the oven and turn down to 130
8. After 1 hour turn off the oven and leave the meringue to cool overnight
9. When your meringue is cool remove from the baking paper and place into a large bowl
10. Break the meringue up into smaller pieces, but make sure you are not just left with crumbs
11. Set aside for now and prepare the whipped cream and slice up your fruit
12. Then place half of the meringue into the bottom of a glass bowl and push down to create an even layer
13. Then top with cream and fruit in separate layers
14. Repeat again, but at this point place the fruit in a decorative manner so your dessert looks pretty
15. Serve into individual bowls

The recipe says to leave the meringue in the oven over night, this is how I was taught to make it, this weekend however, I was out on Saturday evening so I made mine the morning before I needed it, I still gave it 3-4 hours to cool but my meringue was a little stickier than it should be, although I like it that way. Just make sure when you are making this dessert that you have set aside enough time for it to cool properly!

My Beautiful Presentation

You can use as much or as little fruit as you like, and really whichever fruits are your favourite, I think that strawberry’s taste great with the cream and meringue pieces and I added kiwi as I only tried it for the first time a few weeks ago and discovered that I like it and had been avoiding it for no apparent reason! I would love to hear your suggestions for toppings for this dessert.