Pavlova & New Spring Strawberries!

Remember Pavlova?

Now that I'm creating simple, easy to plate, seasonal & straightforward desserts for a new place, I am calling upon those recipes who don't steer me wrong. Just a little finesse on the back-end means elegant, but not too complicated, delivery for the diner.

As soon as I heard strawberries were worth a try I knew Pavlova would be their first vehicle. New Spring strawberries are a little tart because the sun is not as strong. Rhubarb is coming out of greenhouses but is still a little watery because when the plants start and finish in soil they have to work a little harder for moisture.

My idea is this-- roast strawberries in a light sprinkling of vanilla bean sugar, and turn them into a vibrant, intense sauce. Poach rhubarb, making sure not to overcook it so as to keep it's super feminine hot pink liquid, and turn that into a transparent gelee. Sugar sear pieces of rhubarb, using the forces of osmotic reciprocity. Bake a thin layer of light vanilla cake (like Angel Food Cake but cheating by adding melted butter), and hide this under the Pavlova. Whip ever-so-slightly-sweetened, vanilla kissed chantilly.

Voila!

Hidden white fluffy cake, Pavlova, whipped cream, fuschia rhubarb gelee, hot pink pieces of tender rhubarb: intact but not too sweet, and a swirl of intensely flavored strawberry sauce to make the sweet-sour, red-pink, strawberry-rhubarb, pastel palette, crunch-soft (for the Pavlova must be crunchy meringue on the outside and pillowy cloud of soft marshmallowy deliciousness to be a true Pavlova), plate complete.

Simple. Delicious. Pretty in Pink.

See you soon?

Comments

[Garrett]

Damn. I'd totally hit that.

[Aran]

this is just wonderful shuna. I love the simplicity of it but so sweet, crunchy, tart and intense. call me old fashioned too!!

[Melanie]

YES PLEASE!

i am jealous of your meringue making capabilities. it has been most humid in bama this week. (it's only April... dang it!)

[Aaron]

So apparently I'm the only one that thinks a six component dessert with three fruit-cooking techniques and two different uses for meringue doesn't sound so simple?
Delicious, yes, but perhaps not simple.

[Jill]

OMFG--orgasmic!

[White On Rice Couple]

This is definitely simple, delicious and pretty. I'll try my hands at making this pavlova dish when I get some strawberries.

[Athen]

Me, Me, Me! (I want some.) So fun to read that nicely balanced last paragraph, too!