Pavlova (food)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pavlova is a meringue dessert named after the ballet dancer, Anna Pavlova. It is crispy on the outside but light and fluffy inside.
Both New Zealanders and Australians claim the pavlova recipe as their own, but as with the Anzac biscuit, the earliest known books containing the recipe were published in New Zealand.
Professor Helen Leach, a culinary anthropologist at Otago University in New Zealand found a pavlova recipe in a 1933 Rangiora Mothers' Union cookery book, including the correct name of the dish, the correct ingredients, and the correct cooking method. Professor Leach also has an even earlier copy of the pavlova recipe from a 1929 rural New Zealand magazine.
Keith Money, a biographer of Anna Pavlova, wrote that a chef at a hotel in Wellington, New Zealand, created the dish when Pavlova visited there in 1926 on her world tour. Australians say the pavlova is based on a cake baked by Bert Sachse at the Esplanade Hotel in Perth on 3 October 1935, but Sachse's descendants believe that he may have come up with the recipe earlier, since Anna Pavlova visited Australia in 1926 and 1929 and died in 1931.
Pavlova is made by beating egg whites and salt to a very stiff consistency before folding in caster sugar, vanilla, and vinegar, and slow-baking the mixture to create the meringue. This makes the outside of the pavlova a crisp crunchy shell, while the interior remains soft and moist.
Pavlova is traditionally decorated with whipped cream and fresh fruit, notably strawberries, peach slices, passionfruit and/or kiwifruit. Another common topping in Australia [citation needed] is grated Peppermint Crisp, a chocolate bar with peppermint flavouring, and sometimes chocolate chips. Raspberry is a popular topping in the United Kingdom, with the tartness of raspberries contrasting with the sweetness of sugar. Factory-made pavlovas can be purchased at supermarkets and decorated as desired, but rarely achieve home-baked quality.
Leftover decorated pavlova can be stored in the fridge overnight, but will absorb moisture from the air and lose its crispness. Undecorated pavlova can safely be left overnight in the oven in which it was baked, to be decorated in the morning.
[edit] See also
[edit] Further reading
- Leach, Helen M. (1997). The pavlova cake: the evolution of a national dish. In Harlan Walker (ed.), Food on the Move: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, 1996 (pp. 219-223). Devon, England: Prospect Books. ISBN 0-907325-79-3.
[edit] References
- Boylen, Jeremy (reporter) (2004, August 20). Pavlova. George Negus Tonight, Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
