Author: joepastry

Pavlova Recipe

Pavlova is little-known here in the States, but it’s the apple pie of Australia and New Zealand. Here’s my version which hews pretty close to the standard (there’s not much room to move where meringue is concerned). Toppings can be all over the board, though fruit is traditional. You’ll need:

8 egg whites, room temperature
pinch salt
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
14 ounces (2 cups) sugar
1 ounce (3 tablespoons) cornstarch
one double recipe Chantilly cream

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Quick Side Trip to Boston

Reader Paul writes:

OK so here I am with three pastry school interns making Boston Cream Pies. One of them asks, “If this is a two-layer sponge cake filled with pastry cream and topped with a chocolate glaze, why is it called a pie?” My answer: “Durned if I know, but I’ll ask Joe”. So I’m asking.

Hey Paul! That’s a funny question. All I can say is that it’s one of those conundrums that probably has no real answer. There’s no question that in reality Boston cream pie is a cake, a pudding cake to be precise: two layers of sponge enclosing a whipped cream center. Legend has it that Boston cream pie was “invented” by a French pastry chef named Sanzian, an employee of Boston’s famous Parker House Hotel, in 1855. As the story goes he was looking for a way to dress up a business-as-usual English-style cream cake, a confection that had been around in America for about 100 years by that time. His solution was a chocolate glaze, something that would have been trendy then, since melt-able bar chocolate was relatively new. He dubbed it “Boston cream pie.”

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Forgot to mention…

…the encased meats, which were also a key feature of the vacation. Get up there among all those North Europe-descended yoopers and Wisconsinites and no matter where you go the sausages are outstanding. I forgot how good kielbasa and eggs was for breakfast, or how almost poetic Braunschweiger can be when it’s lovingly smoked. Wow. Even the hot dogs were buttery and delivered in links. That, my friends is good eating.

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Cro-Nutty

Holy moly. I take a week off to fish and pastry mania erupts. One day I’m on a walleye junket, the next I discover that a lust for deep fried croissant dough has encircled the globe. Cronuts are what they are. And if you haven’t heard of them, well, you must be living on a bass boat on Lake Escanaba.

Honestly I probably wouldn’t have heard much about them had I not received a score of emails this past week from readers wanting to attempt them. It seems that their inventor, one Dominique Ansel in Lower Manhattan, has stated that while they are made from croissant dough, the dough isn’t made with butter, since butter’s low melt point causes the layers to slide apart during frying.

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Early Summer Hiatus

It’s time for a little time off, ladies and gents. The pastry clan is taking vacation early this year, and none too soon. Between you and me, I’ve been working too hard at my day job. My tiny brain is as singed and crispy ’round the edges as that macaroon two posts down. So we’re […]

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Foster-in-the-Flames

This is a bananas Foster variation of the classic “banana boat” camping dessert that’s made with pieces of chocolate and marshmallow. Start by combining (before your trip) a mixture of 1/2 cup brown sugar (light or dark), 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a bowl. Stir it all up, put it in locking plastic bag and stow. This is enough for 6-8 bananas.

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The Dawn of the Age of Camping

Though you might not think it, camping as a recreational activity had to be invented. We campers in the New World, especially in the States and Canada, tend to assume that modern camping is sort of a cultural hand-me-down, a continuation of the traditions of the Indians, the pioneers and the cowboys on the trail. It’s something we do because people here have pretty much always done it.

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