Hi, welcome to your weekly reminder to pause and practice care. Summer is upon us (in the Northern hemisphere) and as we transition into a new season, it’s worth giving yourself the opportunity, if you can, to unplug and reset. A one-day break or even just a few hours off can go a long way.
Today, Clare Bogen generously shares her family’s secret recipe for Strawberry Pavlova cake —and let me tell you, it looks absolutely delicious. Clare is the Founding Editor of 3 of Cups, an independent and inclusive small press. You can pre-order Outsiders, a short story anthology edited by Alice Slater, here. Find Clare on Twitter and Instagram @clarebot.
Since moving to London, I have only eaten one pavlova that I, myself, did not make. For me, it is the epitome of my mother’s cooking. A recipe that was passed down from her mother, adapted from the Edmonds Cookbook.* Her recipe uses cup measurements, although I’m not sure if her mother’s did. My mum’s twenty-something years in the USA has converted her to cups and teaspoons.
My mother is not a great cook, there was no need to be when one of her daughters (the youngest) only ate hotdogs and cream cheese bagels and another (me) refused to eat meat. But she is a great baker. She’d bake chocolate chip cookies and perfect brownies when our friends came over to visit. She made a hybrid of American and Scotch pancakes every Sunday morning, serving them with strawberries, vanilla yogurt and lashings of maple syrup.
We weren’t allowed sugar on our cereal, and we could have only one biscuit after tea every evening (the best was when we’d get Oreos because that was like having two biscuits!) so these sweet treats felt exceptional, truly special events of my childhood.
Pavlova is my mum’s speciality. We’d have it all year around, especially at Christmas if we were in New Zealand, right when the strawberries are perfect. We’d have it for birthdays and graduations. When I moved to London, my mum sent me off with the family recipe for pavlova.
The perfect pav is one that is marshmallowy soft, with a light pale crispy outside. Pavlova should be topped with fresh whipped cream, never sweetened, and an artful arrangement of sliced kiwifruit and strawberries. I’m mildly allergic to kiwi, but my mum always merely advised me to remove the kiwifruit from my slice of pav. It would never occur to her to make pavlova without kiwifruit. Similarly, she would never make an egg and bacon pie without the bacon, even though I’ve been a vegetarian nearly my whole life, I’m always instructed to just remove the bacon. This kind of mothering feels specifically Kiwi to me. ‘Just get on with it. You’ll live.’
The trick to the marshmallowy centre is in the cooking and the addition of COLD water. When I made this recipe for my partner, he was astonished at how soft it is, how it is almost a different entity than meringue. The pav should be cooked very low down in the oven and cooked at a very low temperature and then cooled down very slowly. My mum’s trick is to cool it down in the oven, by turning it off and leaving the oven door open instead of whipping it straight out into the elements.
They will always collapse a bit, that’s why you put lots of cream on top.
Pavlova by Clare Bogen
INGREDIENTS:
3 Egg Whites
3TBSP Cold water
1 Cup Castor sugar
1 tsp vinegar
1 tsp vanilla essence
3 tsp cornflour
DIRECTIONS:
Beat whites until stiff, add cold water and beat again. Add castor sugar very gradually while beating.
Add vinegar, vanilla and cornflour - beat again.
Place on a greased paper on a greased tray. Bake 150 degrees C/300 degrees F for 45 mins - leave to cool in the oven with the door open.
*The Edmonds Cookery Book is a Kiwi staple. Published by the manufacturers of Edmonds baking powder. I even owned the kid’s version, which relied heavily on the microwave in place of an oven. Here is their recipe for pavlova for reference.
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