Pavlova with White Wine Poached Rhubarb & A week at the seaside

"Pavlova? What`s that?" this is what I thought before meeting this  beauty. Look at the cracks, at the pale cream color and the boozy poached rhubarb on top. That`s something I honestly enjoyed eating. More than my fudgy brownie with homemade creamy lemon ice cream.

For the ones who don`t know what a Pavlova is: It is literary a GIANT Meringue with a crispy exterior and a soft, chewy and marshmallowy center. It`s meringue at its best. 

Fancy as it may look, it is so easy to make if you follow the steps and use very clean, grease-proof kitchen tool (bowl, mixer attachments and all that). 

The most difficult step is...waiting! I hate this word "wait". Don`t know why, maybe because I`m not the least patient when it comes to food. It`s food and I want it NOW!

However, we`ll talk Pavlova later. 

I was absent for a whole week or more mainly because me and my mom decided to make a well deserved trip. She has a stressful time, I had a stressful time as well so we made our luggage and  were headed to the seaside.

There we slept in a pretty mansion with view at the sea, so when we woke up in the morning, we had our breakfast on the balcony. Of course, there was rain. A lot of rain. But we had sunny days too!

We spent our time in a clean, quiet resort. Everything was excellent, except the food. Ugh, we ate at one restaurant the whole week, the only place you could find something edible and at a good price. What really surprised me was how high prices were when it came to food, but how low when it was about clothes. We bought a lot of nice things to wear, among which a silicone spatula. I`m so crazy about it! It really does its job neatly. I mean, as neatly as a spatula can do it...

Messy hair, sleepy eyes...a selfie can be done under any circumstances.

I took a lot more pictures, but there are only a few I really like and they are in this post. 

Since the temperature wasn`t high, we were not able to spend our days sunbathing, so we took long walks. I filled my sneakers with sand. The only thing I really hate about sand is that it gets literary everywhere! And the worse is in your shoes, in my opinion.

Still, I really like the pictures I took, they will remind me later of our trip.

I have to admit: nature is something magical. All the colors, the miracles...

Another activity of ours was shopping. Like, a lot of shopping. We bought so many things that we had to carry almost twice as much as our luggage. Thanks to my uncle who came to pick us up with his car and help up carry everything at the train station.

Of course, I had to try some new variations of chocolate which you don`t normally find in my part of the country:

Thank God there is chocolate in this resort. Brightens my mood on stormy afternoons. White chocolate with rum filling. Maybe the best choc combo I have ever had.

Look at the waves. Look at them!

Storm having passed, the sea was furious! 

Now, these pictures make me melancholic in a good way. A week passed so quickly, even tough I`m not very tanned, or we haven`t spend that much at the seaside as expected because of the weather. 

Sadly, all the trips and holidays have an end. Just like this summer. I admit I`ll kind of get bored studying and going to the gym, but hey, what`s three months of relaxing?

So this is how everything looked like a few hours before my departure. The waters were very tranquil.

Now back to our Pavlova!
Look at all those marvelous cracks. That`s something beautiful. Don`t you think so?

And maybe you`re wondering where this name comes from. This dessert was created in the honor of the famous Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova. 

Now, the topping for a classic Pavlova are whipped cream and berries, but I decided to go for something tart and boozy to cut on the sweetness, because this recipe is quite sweet, so I would not recommend to serve it as it is or just with whipped cream. You have to put a tangy fruit (Granny Smith apples, strawberries, raspberries) on it.

I lost count of how many times I`ve mentioned it, but it`s absolutely necessary that your bowl, whisk and mixer attachments are completely clean and there is no trace of fat on them or in the whites! Why? Because the whites won`t whip. They will deflate and everything will be a big mess, and you won`t make a Pavlova, but a huge failed meringue or whatever.

Speaking of deflated whites...while baking, you`ll notice that the Pavlova will sink a bit and it will crack. That`s perfectly fine. A Pavlova is supposed to do that.

So now that I`m done speaking, here`s the recipe with full instructions:

Ingredients:

4 large egg whites, room temperature

1/4 tsp salt

250 gr castor sugar or granulated white sugar

1 tablespoon cornstarch or known as cornflour (not regular flour! And no other substitutions)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar (you can`t skip this ingredient, it is crucial for the Pavlova`s texture)

For the White Wine Poached Rhubarb:

500 gr rhubarb, washed and cut into strips

half a cup of dry white wine 

3 Tablespoons of sugar

3 tablespoons water

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 150 d C/300 d F and draw a 9 inch/23 cm diameter circle on a regular piece of paper. Put it in a baking tray and cover it with parchment paper, so you`ll have a guide when trying to shape the Pavlova. Set aside.

2. In a large, stainless steel or any other metal bowl, whisk the egg whites with salt until light and frothy. Continue beating on high speed with the mixer until they form soft peaks. 

3. Add the sugar, 1 Tablespoon at a time and beat until it gets completely incorporated. 

4. When there are no sugar granules left, gently fold in the vinegar and vanilla extract, followed by the cornstarch/cornflour.

5. Drop all the meringue on your parchment paper and try to follow the circle in order to make it round. Remove the paper underneath the parchment before baking.

6. Bake for 1 hour or 1 hour and 15 minutes in the preheated oven or until the Pavlova looks dry and has a crispy outside. Let it cool in the oven with the door open. After it has cooled completely, you can top it with the White Whine Poached Rhubarb.

White Whine Poached Rhubarb: 

1. In a medium saucepan, put the rhubarb strips, sugar, wine and salt. Stir them to combine and bring it to a boil over medium heat. Then, reduce the heat to low and let it simmer for 5 minutes with the lid on. After such time, put the poached rhubarb in a bowl and let it cool completely before putting it on the Pavlova.

Note!:

Top the Pavlova with the poached rhubarb just before you serve it, otherwise it will get soggy. 

Bread Pudding

Bread is a staple food and every single household has it: it`s cheap and you can pair it with anything from savory to sweet. It acts both as a dessert and a appetizer. But what if you get bored of the plain butter+jam combo and want to try something warm to your soul? What if there is too much bread in your pantry? What if you want to offer your family a breakfast treat but you don`t have more than bread, milk, eggs, sugar and a bit of jam? You make a BREAD PUDDING!

Maybe it doesn`t look very appealing, but I bet this is comfort food at its best: easy, quick, cheap, warm, comforting. Besides, you can adapt the recipe however you like. Feel free to substitute bread for Croissants, Babka(this is a type of sweet bread with different fillings in it, such as walnut, poppy seed, Turkish Delight, cinnamon and sugar), Brioche Bread, Muffins that are dry and no one want to eat them any longer, sponge cake or any other type of bread that soaks up liquid.

So, I don`t want to get too boring. All I`m trying to say is that you can add, substitute and reduce/increase the amount of ingredients to your preference. You could make it savory by eliminating the sweeteners (sugar, raisins, sweet biscuits) and adding grated cheese, pepperoni, bacon (OMG!), your favorite veggies or/and leftover pieces of meat from yesterdays lunch. I think I`ll come with a savory Bread Pudding recipe in the near future. I promise!

Ingredients:
half a loaf of bread, cut up into cubes
250 ml milk
120 gr sweet crackers (such as Nilla Wafers, Oreos etc) crumbled with your hands
2 eggs
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup raisins
2 Tablespoons walnuts
4 Tablespoons Fruit Jam (strawberry, apricot, plum etc)
4 teaspoons sugar for sprinkling on top
35 gr butter 

Preheat oven to 180 d C/375 d F. Grease a small casserole dish with butter and sprinkle some of the crushed up crackers/biscuits/cookies on the bottom, even it out so that it covers the entire bottom of the pan in a thin layer.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, cinnamon, vanilla extract. Set aside.

Spread half of the bread cubes amount in the casserole. Sprinkle raisins and walnuts over it. Add the jam over it.Top with half of the amount of crackers/biscuits/cookies. Then, finish with another layer of cubed bread and cookies. 

Pour the egg and milk mixture slowly over the other ingredients (bread, cookies etc) in the casserole. Take a spoon or a fork and slightly press the bread cubes to assure they are all coated in the milk mixture. 

Just before inserting it in the oven, place small dots of butter over the top and sprinkle the sugar. Bake for 30-45 minutes or until it is set, the bread is puffed up and golden brown. I guarantee your house will smell delicious.