Breaking down the pavlova

When I was a child, I'd seen these laidback videos of food shows that my father had taped when he was in Hong Kong. As there was no cable TV then my brother and I used to alternate in watching cartoon tapes, old movies( either Amitabh Bachchan's or Shammi Kapoor's) and sometimes these food shows.

Every episode featured the popular dishes of some country. We'd watch professional chefs preparing sushi or baked trout or bean curd packets filled with rice and it was probably the production values of those days, just a slightly sardonic narrator and no glib chefs that made it seem as though we could actually taste what they were making.

One of these videos featured Pavlova. I was enthralled each time I saw it. That beautiful white mound topped with strawberries and kiwis which were pretty much a dream back in those days seemed like something too difficult to accomplish. I could never contemplate making it myself because although I was around 10 or 11 I'd already subjected my family to rock hard cakes and plenty of burnt biscuits.

Years later I discovered Joy of Baking and pretty much tried out quite a few of the recipes there with huge success. When I came across Pavlova, I remembered thinking that maybe I could take it up now. How difficult could it possibly be to bake a meringue and fill it with whipped cream?

And on one eid I decided that's what I would do. I got everything ready, spooned the meringue on the parchment paper and started baking it as in the recipe. So far so good. But every time I checked it was still not done. And I had to do another one as well.

Around an hour later I realised that making a pavlova with a single small oven like I had wasn't such a great idea. Also the meringue wasn't getting cooked properly and I was getting a distinct egg smell.

About two hours later I stared at the meringues which refused to peel off from the paper easily. I got frustrated and when that happens I get angry as well. So without thinking clearly (like what would I tell everyone as I had shooed them away from the kitchen while I baked the dessert), I broke off the meringue in pieces and then, inspiration struck.

No one needed to know what a Pavlova looked like. The only people who had seen those videos were my mother and brother. I could possibly hoodwink my mother and my brother wasn't in town. So I arranged the meringue in small cups and layered it with sweetened whipped cream and fruits and voila, my dessert was ready!

[caption id="attachment_98" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Mini Pavlovas"][/caption]

Although everyone loved it, I haven't been quite inspired to try it again. The recipe for pavlova can be found here. I pretty much followed the instructions in the recipe although the video hadn't been there when I made this the last time around.

It wasn't fun making this and unless you're sure of how your oven works and unless you're really, really positive and confident, you shouldn't really try it out. But then who am I to stop you? If it doesn't quite work out the way it's supposed to, you can always break it down. Like I did.