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Vanilla Pavlova with Chocolate Mousse and Fresh Berries

~ Hilary ~ 5 Comments

I made this pavlova for my best friend and roommate Brittany’s birthday. She just turned 20 on St. Patrick’s Day, but is wise beyond her years.

Birthday girl Brittany, rocking a very Lara Croft-esque outfit (Nat lurking in the background)

But before I start, I believe the majority of you will need me to define “pavlova.” And by that, I mean you’ll need Wikipedia to define it. So here we are:

“Pavlova is a meringue-based dessert named after the Russian ballet dancer Anna Pavlova. Colloquially referred to as “pav,” it is a cake similar to meringue with a crispy crust and a soft, light inner.”

So basically it’s a light, heavenly dessert with an initial crunch and a satisfyingly chewy middle. Delicious.

I have fond memories of many a dessert eaten in Ireland visiting my dad’s family (yes, this is how I’m attempting to tie this in with St. Patrick’s Day). Whenever there was any sort of a fancy or important event, like my Nana and Pop’s 50th wedding anniversary, my talented aunt and godmother Ann would make pavlova.  She made the best pavlova I’ve ever tasted. Alright, so technically I didn’t have a lot to compare it to, but I just remember it being good.  Also, back then I was a picky eater, so anything that a younger Hilary declared delicious must have been extraordinary.  Ann would always pile whipped cream and strawberries on top, adding to the already decadent value of the cake.

I decided to do the same, except with chocolate mousse and a variety of berries.

When Britt originally asked me to make pavlova, I was incredibly worried and hesitant. I’d heard several a pavlova horror stories, many of which involved the delicate pavlova shell simply shattering (this partially happened to me).  On the day that I was making it, I ran into my friend/foodie extraordinaire Ella who gave me some helpful tips. These tips included things like make sure there is not a drop of egg yolk in the egg whites, dry your bowl completely before using it, etc. etc. If you’re reading this Ella, please know that I took your advice extremely seriously, and that I full on give you credit for this pavlova being a success.

It turns out it wasn’t really that bad to make.  Sure I had to turn our powerful oven down to a mere whimper of the recipe’s ordered temperature (it was in at 150 degrees fahrenheit), but other then that, everything went off without a hitch.

Mixing egg whites with sugar is really quite a phenomenal experience. Seriously, it is magic. How can two seemingly simple ingredients create such a marshmellowy smooth cream? It’s wonderful, really. I am stunned and humbled everyday by the power of desserts.

Anyways, the recipes I used to make the pavlova and chocolate mousse and down beneath the pictures.  The only thing I would have changed would have been to make my pavlova larger in height, versus diametre. This would have lent itself more to that chewy pavlova centre I made reference to earlier. You want all that you can get of that good stuff.

PS: Be gentle with this one. Pavlovas are all about precision and carefulness. I kept the finished pavlova in my bedroom so it wouldn’t face torture in our shared dining room. Promise me you’ll keep this in mind.

Source, vanilla pavlova: Phe.MOM.enon (note: I didn’t use her mousse recipe)
Source, chocolate mousse: Joy of Baking

America the Brave Cake (aka Christine’s birthday cake)

~ Hilary ~ 5 Comments

This is probably the first and last time I will ever get to make a Fourth of July cake.  Or at the very least it will definitely be the last time I make it in March.

As you saw in my last post, my good friend Christine recently celebrated her 21st birthday (we were very nearly birthday twins, but she beat me by a day).  In honour of this USA-coming of age and her partial American heritage, she had a “Legal in America” theme, and with such I was required to prepare for my first ever all-American themed bash.

The birthday girl, looking fab (as usual)

I am not one to take party themes lightly.  I knew I had to bake something extra impressive for Christine and her birthday, since she has so patiently sat through stories of a variety of my cakes, cupcakes and cookies, without getting to eat a bite.  Hopping around on the Internet one night, I stumbled on this really cool cake concept on a blog called “17 and Baking.”  First, HOLY, this 17-year-old (Elissa) is a baking/blogging rock star.  She’s been featured on loads of websites, shows and EVERYTHING and she is still only in her teens.  I graciously bow in her presence.  Also, she’s a j-school student and half-Asian.  Other than the fact that she is way more awesome at the aforementioned two things, we seem very similar.  Anyways, the inside of her cake looked like an American flag, and I fell in love.  Check out the link here (I would feel bad posting one of her fantastic pictures on my blog).

As wicked as Elissa’s cake looked, her instructions were a tad time-consuming, and were not ideal since I had left the making of this cake until the morning of the party (all before I rushed to class at 11:30 a.m.).  And so, I decided to tone down the American hype just a bit and go with a checkerboard-like pattern, still embracing the good ol’ red, white, and blue of our neighbouring nation.

If you ever plan on making coloured cakes, you MUST invest in gel food colouring.  It is amazing.  Great, great, magical stuff that makes colours more bright than traditional food colouring ever could.  My cakes looked like colourful sponges that would be used in a kindergarten classroom.  After my initial disturbance by seeing such brightly hued cakes, I decided that regardless of their wonky colour, they would still be delicious.  Also, I LOVE that I’ve conquered my kitchen’s oven.  Not to brag or anything, but these cakes were perfectly baked…

Disturbingly bright cake colours, mid-frosting

FINALLY (I seem to be using a lot of unnecessary caps in this post, I’m channeling my inner Kanye West blogger apparently), white chocolate icing is really yummy.  I added twice as much chocolate as the recipe (see below) requested, and am so incredibly happy I did.  It was like eating a creamy chocolate bar.  Yum.

I officially award this cake the “most badass birthday cake award” and feel like I have finally topped (or at least tied) my pool party cake.  What comes next?  I’m thinking a rainbow cake (this girl is also 19, apparently I’m really far behind these talented American teens).

Enjoy the pictures and, I guess I have to say this, god bless America!

PS: see my adaptation of this recipe below the pictures.

Continue reading →

Happy Birthday Christine!

~ Hilary ~ 1 Comment

Christine, I know that this is a slightly belated post, so I apologize.  I blame the chaos of newsroom day/my own birthday for the delay.  If anyone is wondering who the small figures are in the poorly cut paper television screen, they are Tim Gunn and Mondo from Project Runway.  Talking about this show was kind of how Christine and I became friends at the beginning of the year, and I thought I needed to pay tribute to this moment through card-form.

Also, there will be a semi-related blog post coming in the next few days showing the cake I made for Christine’s Red, White and Blue bash (all-American theme, will explain more later).

In the meantime, all you need to know is that March is THE BEST month to be born in.

Raspberry Lemonade Cupcakes: happy birthday to ME!

~ Hilary ~ 2 Comments

I do a lot of happy birthday wishing to a lot of different people on my blog.  This entry is a 100 per cent self-indulging birthday post to ME.  That’s right.  It is my birthday today and I am now 21.

My birthday celebrations, circa 1993. My cake was chocolate and shaped like a snake.

I wish I had time to post this earlier, but I’ve had an absolutely exhaustingly busy day.  Today in my television class we had our first same-day assignments due.  For those of you who don’t understand the j-school lingo, this means that we had to interview and edit a news feature piece on tight deadline.  It was a tad stressful in the end, but thanks to my two awesome teammates Ariel and Christine and a little birthday luck (also found wicked lucky quarter on the bus this morning), we got through it.

I didn’t actually intend to bake or cook anything special for myself, so when my class was cancelled yesterday morning, I spontaneously made the decision to spoil myself.  While I’m glad I did, my spontaneity left me with several kitchen dilemmas.  First, I had to rush to the local grocery store to buy milk, whole milk and raspberry jam.  Second, I realized after the oven was preheated and the cupcake batter was mixed that I was out of cupcake liners.  Oh terrible misfortunes!  THANK GOD I live in the best neighbourhood that has ever existed.  I quickly got changed out of my pajamas and rushed around the corner to Grace in the Kitchen where a speedy visit provided me with these semi-ugly but completely effective unbleached muffin liners.  Beggars can’t be choosers.  Also, while I was there I met one of the workers, Andrew, who says he has read my blog!  So what if this is mostly because I shamelessly plugged it to him when I bought a massive amount of white chocolate, it’s still neat.

Anywho, I got this fantastic recipe off of Tastespotting.  The blog is called A Spicy Perspective, and the original recipe was named “zingy raspberry lemon cupcakes.”  Two reasons I liked these: (A) the blogger totally made up the word “zingy” and (B) they were completely adorable.  As a half asian, I 200 per cent fulfill the stereotype of liking cute things.  I squealed with delight when taking the pictures you see below.

PS: Britt got me a brie baker for my birthday!  BRIE. BAKING. Need I say more?

Finally, can we please just appreciate the cool and creative qualities of iPhone photo apps (thank you Hipstamatic!)

The Ottawa Cupcake Challenge

~ Hilary ~ 2 Comments

Dear world:

A few weeks ago I was asked by Jessey to be a guest blogger for Local Tourist Ottawa, a cool blog that her and her friend Amy started a while back.  The idea behind the blog is great: it’s all about people sharing what they love about Ottawa and encouraging others to discover more about the city they live in (what fun is a city to live in if you can’t explore it, after all?).  When I saw that Jes wanted me to be a guest blog, I was out-of-my-mind excited.  Maybe this is a good time to say this: I have absolutely NO idea how/why people are still reading my blog or how I am suddenly a legit blogger.  People I don’t know comment on my posts, link to me off of their blogs, and everything!  Anyways, it’s mind boggling, and I’m so honoured and happy that people seem to like what I do.  So everyone, thank you so much for giving me even more validation to do what I love.  It’s really just so lovely.

Buuuuuut back to me guest blogging.  I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to write about at first, until one day it hit me:

I am going to find Ottawa’s perfect cupcake.

With that thought firmly planted in my mind, and I pitched the idea to Jes who (thank heavens) loved it.

So here is a shameless plug.  Please, please, please read my posts on Local Tourist Ottawa, as I sacrifice my dental health and well being for a delicious mission.  Here’s the link to the intro post I’ve already written, outlining the technicalities of my adventure.  I plan on trying/blogging about at least one cupcake a week, so please keep checking back for updates.  I’ve already got a list of more than a dozen bakeries/cupcakes to try (so many people commented on my intro post/tweeted at me suggesting places!), so I’ve got my work cut out for me.

A notepad appropriate of such a mission. Thanks mom!