A Gilt Nutmeg

First of all, I apologize for my photo; I’ve been in a mountain cabin all weekend and left my fancy-schmancy camera at home.  Now…

This is a story of a girl and her meringue.  Growing up in Georgia in the summer, you KNEW when there was humidity.  It was the suffocating, sticky kind that made temperatures even in the 80s insufferable.  Here in Southern California, no such thing exists.  Where I work in “The Valley”, it gets to be 110 degrees there, but with very low humidity so I barely notice the heat sometimes.  At home in Beachtown, we get foggy nights and mornings here and there, sure, but I never feel any humidity there either.  So imagine my frustration the last time I tried to make something with meringue (PPQ’s Divinity project) only to utterly fail.  Oh that was not a good night in the kitchen, let me tell you, and The Boyfriend has never seen me so upset that I had to leave the kitchen for the evening.  I scoffed at suggestions that it might be the humidity only to begrudgingly check the weather-you should have seen my jaw drop when I read that humidity had been 95% that night.  No WONDER I failed so spectacularly!  I will never again question whether humidity has an effect on a recipe-but I do wonder why I don’t feel almost 100% humidity in California…why isn’t it so suffocating as it is in Georgia?  If you’re a meteorologist, please, explain this to me.

When I got word that it was my turn to host Project Pastry Queen, I scanned the list of recipes left to choose from; we’re starting to slim down the list considerably, so eliminating the elaborate cakes that I don’t need sitting in my kitchen and the savory options that are just a teensy bit less fun to make, I didn’t have many choices.  The pavlovas caught my eye, though…given my big fat meringue failure last time, I was hesitant.  But, since I fancy myself a plucky adventurer, I officially submitted pavlovas as my recipe for the week and started checking the humidity nightly.  I knew I was going on a business trip the week I was to host and on a mini-vacation that weekend, so all this meant was that I had to make the recipe ahead of time so I could be ready to post even if I wasn’t in the kitchen.  So back to me checking the humidity nightly…the days started to tick down…I thought I still had some time…then three days…then two…and then the last night before I left for vacation the humidity was 89% and I packed my handheld mixer and my spatula in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, I could make the pavlovas at the cabin I was meeting my friends at for the weekend.  And then at the cabin it rained all Friday night and Saturday morning.  I was pretty sure at this point that I was cursed and I despaired that I was going to have to post the recipe for PPQ without having actually made it.  I kept obsessively checking the weather, however, and when at the last minute on Saturday night the humidity miraculously went from somewhere in the 70s down to 22% I scrambled into action and hustled to the kitchen.  I was suspiciously eyeing my progress the entire time and was surprised to find myself with beautifully whipped up egg whites at the end.  Still wary and prepared for failure, I traced the circles onto the parchment paper, spooned the meringue onto the sheets, put them in the oven and crossed my fingers.  After an hour, you’re supposed to turn off the oven and leave the pavlovas in the oven for another hour or overnight without ever opening the oven door.  This morning I cautiously approached the oven…opened the door…I couldn’t believe my eyes at these beautiful little puffs of meringue sitting in the oven!

So this is a tale of failure (boo) and success (yay!); I hope the story doesn’t scare you, because really, if you just pay attention to the humidity in the first place, you won’t have any problem whatsoever.  It truly is a beautiful, elegant little dessert that should not inspire fear whatsoever (especially because it was named after a ballerina, which isn’t scary at all).  I do admit that I forgot my camera at home, so please excuse the less than stellar photograph, as it’s pretty hard to put together a make-shift photo studio at a cabin in the woods.

Please check PPQ for the other members’ pavlovas; I’m sure they’re all going to be gorgeous!

Petite Pavlovas with Lemon Cream and Fresh Fruit
from The Pastry Queen by Rebecca Rather
Serves 4

Meringue

• 4 large egg whites (save 3 of the yolks for the lemon cream)
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tarter
• pinch of salt
• 1 1/4 cups sugar (superfine sugar is best)

Filling

• 3 egg yolks, plus 2 whole eggs
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/4 cup champagne or brut sparkling wine
• 3 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
• 1/2 cup chilled heavy whipping cream
• 2 tablespoons powdered sugar
• 1 cup fresh fruit, sliced

Meringue

1. Heat oven to 300 degrees.  Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.  Trace 4 evenly spaced 4″ diameter circles on each piece of parchment paper (I used a small bowl to trace).
2. Using an electric mixer (fitted with a whisk attachment, if you have more than one choice), beat the egg whites, cream of tarter, and salt on high speed about 2 minutes until soft peaks form (which means that when you pull the beaters out of the egg whites, they’ll make soft little curls off the tips of the beaters that flop over).
3. Add the sugar, very patiently, 2 tablespoons at a time, and continue beating the egg whites on high speed until stiff peaks form (when you pull the beaters out of the egg whites, the curls won’t flop over, they’ll stand up pointy).
4. Spoon the meringue onto the baking sheets using the traced circles as a guide.  Use the back of a spoon to build up a 1″ rim on each meringue round.
5. Bake the meringues for 1 hour.  Turn off the oven and leave them inside the closed oven for another hour, or you can just leave them in the closed oven overnight if you want.  (Rebecca says if you wrap them well, they’ll keep for 2 days at room temp or 3 weeks if they’re frozen).

Filling

1. Whisk the egg yolks, eggs, sugar, lemon juice and champagne in a large bowl set over a saucepan filled with 2″ of simmering water.  Cook about 15 minutes, whisking occasionally, until the mixture thickens.
2. Whisk the butter into the lemon mixture, one piece at a time.
3. Cook about 10 minutes longer, whisking occasionally.  The lemon filling will be thick and pudding-like.
4. Cover the filling with plastic wrap, pressing the wrap into the surface of the curd, sealing it and leaving no air between the wrap and the filling.  Refrigerate it for at least 1 hour or up to 3 days.
5. Using an electric mixer (again with a whisk attachment if you have the option), beat the cream in a large bowl on high speed until soft peaks form.  Add the powdered sugar and beat until thoroughly combined.  Fold the whipped cream into the cooled lemon filling.
6. Spoon the lemon filling into the meringue shells and top with the fruit.  Serve immediately and enjoy!

I have to admit that I always thought creme brulee was a very hard, very fancy dessert, which is why you only really saw it in restaurants.  Now that I’ve made it, I realize it’s incredibly easy and that’s probably why you always see it in restaurants-because it takes practically no effort for the kitchen staff to make, yet it looks spectacularly difficult and fancy.  Truly, it’s almost embarrassing how easy this recipe is and I feel like I’ve exposed some sort of great restaurant chef secret.

This recipe from our dear Pastry Queen is espresso flavored and if you like coffee, this is definitely the dessert for you.  So rich and full of flavor (that espresso powder is impressive!), I could only eat half the ramekin before having to call it quits.  If you’ve been reading my blog for any sort of time, you’ll know my outright obsession with vanilla and, while this recipe was very good, I can’t wait to make creme brulee without the addition of the espresso powder next time, especially because I now know it takes next to no effort.

The one thing I know stopping most of you is lack of a kitchen torch in your cabinet.  When I made that chocolate meringue tart a few months ago, I was in the kitchen whining to myself about how terrible my lack of broiler element in my oven was and how a kitchen torch would make everything better.  Little did I know that The Boyfriend sitting in the living room actually heard me whining from the kitchen in between his episodes of Star Trek and, lo and behold, guess what I got for my birthday in December!  This was the grand exciting first use and I couldn’t be happier with it.  If you don’t have a kitchen torch, you can use the broiler element in your oven, which I don’t have, so I would have been S.O.L. if it weren’t for such a generous partner-in-crime.

Check out Sarah’s beautiful chocolate covered espresso bean garnish here (she even has video!) and the rest of the PPQ members here.

Warning: as is typical with many desserts, this needs to sit in the fridge for 3 hours after baking to cool, so if you’re making it for company, make it the night before or the morning of.

Espresso Crème Brûlée

Serves 6

From the Pastry Queen by Rebecca Rather

• 1/4 cup whole milk
• 2 3/4 cups heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon espresso powder (I got King Arthur brand espresso powder at Sur la Table)
• 1 vanilla bean (or 1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste + if you’re Emily, an extra splash of plain vanilla extract)
• 7 large egg yolks
• 2/3 cup plus about 1/2 cup sugar for the crust later

1. Heat the oven to 300 degrees and lightly butter your ramekin dishes.  Rebecca suggests using six 6oz ramekins but I have a ragtag collection of two 5oz, two 6oz, and two 7oz.  It all evens out and my point is that you should just use whatever works that is close-ish in size and not stress over finding 6oz ramekins.
2. In a non-reactive saucepan (which means not aluminum or copper), combine milk, cream, espresso powder and vanilla (if you’re using a bean, scrape the seeds off the pod and add both seeds and empty pod to the cream) and heat until boiling.  As soon as it boils, turn off the heat.
3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the 2/3 cup sugar until thoroughly combined, then, slowly pour the hot cream mixture into the egg yolks, whisking the whole time until fully mixed in.
4. Strain the mixture through a sieve into another bowl to catch the vanilla bean pod and any little bits of egg that may have cooked.
5. Place the prepared ramekins into a baking dish that is taller than the ramekins and fill the ramekins almost to the tippy top with the cream mixture (my ramekins have a rim about a 1/4″ from the top that I used as my stopping point.  Rebecca suggests filling them to the absolute top-to accomplish this, she puts the pan of ramekins in the oven before filling them to the brim, so they don’t spill during transport).
6. Put the baking dish with ramekins in it into the oven and, using a measuring cup or whatever you have on hand (I used a gravy boat that was surprisingly perfect for the task), pour water into the pan until it reaches about 2/3 of the way up the the outside of the ramekins.  (A “water bath” like this was one of those cooking things I was always scared to do but…really, I’m just lame.  All it is is pouring water in a pan.  What on earth was I scared about?)
7. Bake the custard for 1 hour, checking every so often on them.  If they bubble or if they start to brown on top, reduce the oven temp to 250.  Mine were fine, and I usually find that my oven runs a little hot.  Bake them until they’re slightly jiggly but not liquid.  They’re going to look an ugly dull grey for now, but they’ll be prettier with the sugar crust later.
8. Remove the ramekins from the water bath pan and let them cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes, then transfer the fridge for 3 hours.
9. When you’re ready to eat, sprinkle a layer of sugar on top of the custard-just barely enough so that you can’t see the custard underneath.  When you torch it, you want it to be easily cracked with a spoon.  You may notice in my photo that I put waaay too much sugar on top and ended up with a thick slab of sugar candy on top.  It looked like a layer of glass after it cooled.  You want it to be more thin, crispy, and bubbly, like Sarah’s.  If you over sugar, no worries!  It’ll still taste fantastic, you may just have a piece of candy to slam through with your spoon instead of a more delicate topping you gently tap.  Hold the torch a few inches away from the dish and keep it moving over the surface until the sugar melts and turns bubbly and brown.  Let cool for a minute or two to harden and then serve immediately.  Enjoy!