Happy birthday Nuha!!

Made chocolate pavlova for Nuha's birthday. Suka sangat dia dapat tolong letak fruits atas pavlova.

Sampai comot hidung segala kena krim.

Happy birthday Nuha. Semoga jadi anak yang solehah. We love you always.

*resepi chocolate pavlova tu dah pernah post dulu kat blog ni.

Birthday cakes

Shas buat kek strawberi (favourite birthday boy) dan dilapis chocolate ganache untuk birthday Faiz tahun ni. Tak plan pon nak buat bentuk lego, idea tu datang the night before making the cake sebab Faiz sangat suka main Lego.

Excited Faiz tengok kek dia, tapi dia tanya juga kenapa lego warna coklat. Nak buat camne, ada cream dengan coklat untuk buat chocolate ganache je and I don't have any food color available at home at the moment.

Another 'cake' to celebrate Faiz's birthday. Buat pavlova.

And for Iman's birthday, I made chocolate cake with chocolate toppings.

Simple je birthday cake Iman, yang penting sedap :) Kids loved this chocolate cake, moist je.. resepi pon sangat simple.

Happy birthday to both of you.. Love you all so much!!

Chocolate pavlova

Made chocolate pavlova again last weekend, based from the recipe that I recently shared. I've however increased the amount of ingredients by 1/3 and am able to make a pavlova of about 11 inches in size.

This time around, I just used strawberries and grated belgian chocolate to top the whipped cream. Delicious :)

Chocolate pavlova recipe

As mentioned in my previous blog post, I made chocolate pavlova for Faiz's birthday. I've made him cupcakes to bring to school, and we had also eaten some of the cupcakes the day I baked them. As such, to be a little different, I made chocolate pavlova for his birthday celebration.

I've made pavlova before, and I noticed that the kids enjoyed chocolate pavlova even more. I personally love the chocolate pavlova better than the ordinary pavlova. Seriously, it tasted wonderful.

The recipe that I used is adapted from Nigella Lawson's website. I've made some changes to the recipe, you can view the original recipe here.

Recipe for chocolate pavlova:

3 egg whites

150 grams caster sugar

2 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted

1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

30 grams dark chocolate, roughly chopped

Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius. Line a baking sheet with a parchment paper. Draw a 6-inch diameter circle on the paper and flip the parchment paper over.

Beat in the egg whites until satiny peaks form, then beat in the sugar, a little at a time until the meringue is stiff and shiny. Then, gently fold in the cocoa powder, vinegar and dark chocolate. Mound the meringue onto the parchment paper, within the circle drawn, smoothing the sides and the top with a spatula.

Place the baking sheet in the oven, and immediately turn the temperature down to 140 degree Celcius. Cook for about 1 hour, until the edges/sides look crisp. Turn off the oven and open the oven door slightly to let the meringue cool. Don't be demotivated if the meringue crack when baking, as this is pretty normal and it won't affect the taste. Besides, you're gonna cover the top with cream and fresh fruits.

As for the topping, you will need:

250 ml of cream (I used UHT whipping cream)

1 tablespoon of icing sugar

2 teaspoons of vanilla essence

Fresh fruits (I used strawberry and green grapes)

Grated dark chocolate to sprinkle on top (I used Belgian dark chocolate)

When you are ready to serve, whisk the cream till thick and add in the icing sugar and vanilla essence. Pile the cream on top of the meringue. Scatter over the fresh fruits and sprinkle over the grated chocolate.

Pavlova

I made pavlova the other day for lunch's dessert based from the recipe found from the Joy of Baking's website. I substituted the vinegar with lemon juice since I only have apple cider vinegar at home but not white vinegar. Besides, lemon have this sweet-sour smell that I love. Original recipe can be found here.

Delicious!

Below is the recipe that I used:

Ingredients for pavlova:

4 large egg whites

200 g of caster sugar (processed using food processor until very fine)

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

1 teaspoon of lemon juice

1/2 tablespoon of corn flour

1. Preheat oven to 130 degree Celsius.
2. Beat the egg whites until they hold soft peak.
3. Add sugar, a little at a time until they hold stiff and shiny peaks.
4. Add in vanilla essence.
5. Add in the lemon juice and corn flour and gently fold in using a rubber spatula.
6. Spread the meringue on a baking paper (about 6 to 7 inches in diameter) and bake for 60 minutes.
7. Turn the oven off, leave the over door slightly ajar and let the meringue to cool.

Meringue spread on a baking paper

Ingredients for topping:

250 g of whipping cream

20 g of icing sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

Fresh fruits - strawberry, blueberry and kiwi

1. Just before serving, whip the cream until soft peaks form. 
2. Add in the sugar and vanilla essence. 
3. Place the freshly whipped cream on top of the meringue and arrange the fruits randomly.
4. Serve immediately.

Sliced pavlova

I love this dessert, hubby and the kids loves this too. The sourness of the fruits makes this dessert tasted even better, and fresher too. Just a note to myself - to place more fruits in future pavlovas, I initially thought that I've used more than enough, but no, the more fruits on top of the pavlova, the better.