Day: April 1, 2024

Method

Passion fruit Crémeux

1. In a small bowl, add the water to the powdered gelatin and let it sit for 5 minutes

2. In a bowl over a pan of gently simmering water, add the sugar, eggs, egg yolks and passion fruit purée. Whisk constantly until the mixture thickens and reaches 83C.

3. Once the mixture reaches temperature, pass it through a sieve into a bowl. Then, add the bloomed gelatin and butter on top and blend with a hand blender until smooth.

4. Add the passion fruit crémeux to your half sphere mould and use a palette knife to smooth the top of the mould to make sure they’re even. Freeze overnight/6 hours.

Whipped Vanilla Chantilly Cream

1. In a small bowl, add the water to the powdered gelatin and let it sit for 5 minutes

2. Add the white chocolate to a tall jug and add the bloomed gelatin on top

3. To a saucepan over a medium heat add 185g of the cream and the vanilla bean paste/vanilla beans and heat until it’s steaming. 

4. Once steaming, pour it over your chocolate and gelatin mixture and leave for 2 minutes. You want to make sure the cream covers the top of the chocolate. After two minutes, blend the mixture together with a hand blender. 

5. Once blended, add the remaining cream (415g) and blend again.

6. Pour the cream mixture into a bowl and cover the surface with cling film. Leave to chill in the fridge overnight/12 hours.

French-Swiss Meringue

1. Preheat the oven to 80C/175F Non-Fan Assisted

2. Into the bowl of a stand mixer, add the egg whites and sugar.

3. Place this over a pan of gently simmering water, and whisk constantly until it reaches a temperature of 55C/130F on a digital thermometer.

4. Once at temperature, remove it from the heat and place it onto a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Whisk for 6-7 minutes on a medium speed, until the bowl feels cool to the touch and the meringue is thick. 

5. Remove it from the stand mixer and place a sieve over the top. Sieve in the icing/powdered sugar, and use a whisk to gently fold this in. We use a whisk because we want the icing sugar to incorporate easily, but we also want to knock some of the stiffness out of the meringue, just slightly, so that we get a softer texture for the design of the pavlova.

6. Add your meringue mixture to a piping bag fitted with a large round tip nozzle. Flatten the mixture gently to remove any air bubbles.

7. Lightly grease the back of a half sphere mould (the same one you used for the passion fruit cremeux). I like to use an oil spray, but you can lightly brush a neutral oil over the mould.

8. Holding the piping bag vertically over one of the moulds, push down until the meringue covers the half sphere, then quickly do a ‘whip’ motion at the top to release the piping bag. Repeat with the other half spheres, spacing them out so the meringues don’t touch (they will expand slightly as they bake).

9. Lastly, sprinkly desiccated coconut over the meringue, making sure to hit the sides of the meringue. Then put the meringue in the oven for 3 hours. 

Tropical Fruit Salad

1. Add all the ingredients to a bowl and stir together

Assembly

1. Once the meringues are baked, leave them to cool for an hour then gently release them from the mould. 

2. Once cooled, gently grate the bottom of the meringues to create a flat surface for them to sit.

3. Melt the white chocolate over a pan of simmering water. Once melted, add a spoonful of white chocolate into a meringue cup. Tip the meringue to the sides to coat the inside of the cup, then tip out the excess chocolate. Put them in the fridge for 5 minutes until the chocolate has set.

4. Fill the meringue cups with tropical fruit salad so that it’s flush with the top of the cup. Then remove the frozen passion fruit cremeux half spheres from the freezer and add them on top.

5. Add the chilled whipped vanilla chantilly to a stand mixer and whisk until it forms a medium peak – about 1-2 minutes. Be careful not to over whisk it. Add it to a piping bag fitted with a round tip nozzle. Then, holding it vertically over the top one of your meringues, push down so the cream covers all of the sphere.

6. Zest a light dusting of lime over the top of the meringues. Serve roughly 30 minutes after removing the passion fruit cremeux from the freezer (to allow it time to defrost, but not to melt).