Cakes & Bakes: Lemon and blueberry Pavlova

One of the first things I remember baking as a kid in Trinidad are soupies. Plain meringue rounds, usually with a good dash of garish food colouring. I don’t think I’ve made meringue since then, so this dessert is a long time coming! This time the recipe will be a bit more sophisticated; I’ll be making a lemon and blueberry Pavlova. I’m not a great fan of dry, chalky meringue so I’m making it with a just about baked, soft, chewy Swiss meringue.

For a successful meringue you need to ensure you do a few things. Firstly, use the freshest eggs possible. Next, separate you eggs – one by one – not into each other to ensure none of the yolk gets into the mix. If you don’t, the yolk of the last egg you crack splits, that would be all the egg whites ruined!

It’s also important to make sure that your mixing bowl and your whisk or whisk attachment are clean as a whistle. If they have any sign of oil or grease it will affect how well the egg whites form those all-important stiff peaks.

Success on that front – so I was off to a good start!

I decided on three graduated layers with whipping cream swirled with the gently simmered blueberries – and a small batch of my freshly made lemon curd.

The flavours worked so well together – the sweet meringue combining beautifully with the slightly tart blueberries and the sweet, unctuous lemon. A real triumph!

Other great Pavlova fillings you could try are the classic strawberries, passion fruit & kiwifruit; mandarin; peach, pomegranate, banana & toffee (banoffee) or black cherry & chocolate (black forest). Or flavour the actual meringue with cocoa powder, fine ground coffee beans or – my new favourite – cardamom.

Click here to pin the recipe for later!

Lemon and blueberry Pavlova

2017-03-10 17:48:56

Ingredients

4 egg whites
200g/7oz caster sugar
pinch of cream of tartar
150g/5oz blueberries
300ml/10½fl oz whipping cream
50g lemon curd

Add ingredients to shopping list

If you don’t have Buy Me a Pie! app installed you’ll see the list with ingredients right after downloading it

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 100ºC/200ºF/gas mark ½
Line a large oven tray with baking parchment
In a heat-proof mixing bowl, gently mix the egg whites, sugar and cream of tartar over a simmering saucepan of water (make sure the bottom of the bowl isn't touching the water). Keep stirring until the sugar has completely dissolved
Remove the mixing bowl from the saucepan and, using an electric mixer, beat on a slow speed rising gradually to a high speed. Continue for about 3-5 minutes until the meringue forms stiff peaks
Spoon the meringue into a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle
Pipe 3 graduated circular shapes and 6-8 meringue kisses on to the parchment paper
Bake for 1-1½ hours depending on how sticky or hard you want the finished meringue
Put the blueberries into a small saucepan with a tablespoonful of sugar and cook on a low heat for about 5 minutes. Set aside to cool
Beat the whipping cream until thickened and forms peaks. Set aside
When cooked, remove the meringue from the parchment paper (you may need to use a palette knife) and allow to cool completely on a wire rack
Put the largest meringue round on to a large plate and top with ⅓ of the whipped cream, ⅓ of the blueberry mixture and drizzle with ⅓ of the lemon curd
Repeat with the two other circles of meringue (the smallest goes on the top)
Decorate with the meringue kisses

H is for Home Harbinger https://hisforhomeblog.com/

Cakes & Bakes: Blueberry pie

It’s been almost six months since I last posted a pie recipe on Cakes & Bakes. I’ve righted that wrong this week with a blueberry pie.

My recipe is a hodgepodge of three others. The blueberry pie filling is from my vintage 1950s Betty Crocker cookbook, Dinner for Two; the sweet pastry is from Dorie Granspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours and the crème Anglaise is from that catering college staple, Ceserani & Kinton’s Practical Cookery.

Much as I enjoyed this bake, if I were to make another blueberry pie, I’d do it a little differently.

Firstly, the blueberry pie filling was WAAAAY too sweet for my taste. Perhaps it wouldn’t have tasted so sweet if the pastry I’d used had been just a plain shortcrust.

Secondly, the filling recipe calls for ½ teaspoon of cinnamon; Justin liked it, but it just didn’t work for me.

Thirdly (and lastly), I had my first slice with crème Anglaise and my second (not straight after, obviously 🙂 ) with double cream. I much preferred the latter version.

Perhaps I’ll test my 3rd portion with vanilla ice cream – all in the name of research on behalf of our readers, of course!

Blueberry pie

Print recipe Pin recipe

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Ingredients

For the pastry

400 g/14oz plain flour
120 g/4oz icing sugar
pinch of salt
250 g/9oz very cold butter
2 egg yolks

For the filling

125 g/4½oz caster sugar
30 g/1oz plain flour
½tsp teaspoon ground cinnamon
375 g/13oz blueberries
2 tbs butter

For the crème anglaise

300 ml/½pt milk
25 g/1oz caster sugar
2 egg yolks
2-3 drops vanilla extract I used ¼tsp vanilla bean paste

Instructions

For the pastry

Put the flour, icing sugar and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse a couple of times to combine
Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is cut in coarsely - you'll have pieces the size of oatmeal flakes and pea-size pieces and that's just fine
Stir the eggs, just to break them up, and add it them little at a time, pulsing after each addition
When the eggs are in, process in long pulses - about 10 seconds each - until the dough, which will look granular soon after the egg is added, forms clumps and curds
Just before your pastry reaches this clumpy stage, the sound of the machine working the dough will change, so listen out
Turn the dough out onto a work surface. Very lightly and sparingly - make that very, very lightly and sparingly - knead the dough just to incorporate any dry ingredients that might have escaped mixing
Butter the pie dish and press the dough evenly along the bottom and up the sides of the dish and over the rim. Don't be stingy - you want a crust with a little heft because you want to be able to both taste and feel it. Also, don't be too heavy-handed - you want to press the crust in so that the pieces cling to one another and knit together when baked, but you don't want to press so hard that the crust loses its crumbly shortbread-ish texture
Freeze the pastry for at least 30 minutes, preferably longer, before baking
Preheat the oven to 175ºC/375ºF/Gas mark 4
Butter the shiny side of a piece of aluminium foil and fit the foil tightly against the pastry
Bake the pastry for 25 minutes, then carefully remove the foil. If the pastry has puffed up, press it down gently with the back of a spoon
Bake for another 3 to 5 minutes. Allow to cool before adding the pie filling

For the filling

Combine the sugar, flour and cinnamon
Stir in the blueberries
Turn into pastry-lined pie dish and dot with butter
Roll out the remaining piece of pastry into a round and, using the rolling pin, carefully lower the pastry over the filling
Press the pastry lid into the pastry bottom either with your thumbs or a fork. Trim the excess and brush the top with a little milk
Bake at 175ºC/375ºF/Gas mark 4 for 25-30 minutes or until crust is brown and juice just begins to bubble through slits in the crust

For the crème anglaise

Boil the milk in a medium-sized saucepan. Allow to cool a little
Mix yolks, sugar and vanilla in a basin before adding to the milk
Put the saucepan back on a low heat and stir with a whisk or wooden spoon until the desired thickness. Do NOT boil
Pass through a fine sieve into a serving jug

Keyword blueberries, blueberry, fruit pie, pastry, pie

Cakes & Bakes: Lemon & blueberry cheesecake

Right, it’s official, cheesecake is H is for Home’s favourite cake!

It’s by far, the most baked Cakes & Bakes entry.

This week, lemon & blueberry cheesecake joins the ranks.

I’ve used Hobnobs instead of the usual digestive biscuits for the base. Frozen blueberries are available in the supermarket all year round and at a fraction of the price of fresh.

Home-made cheesecake isn’t difficult. The secret is cooking it long & low. Wrapping the tin with foil and placing it in a water bath (bain-marie) makes sure it cooks properly all the way through without burning. You want the slightest browning of the top.

It feels like a very indulgent cake… but I know the blueberries count as one of your 5-a-day. It leaves just one question, do the lemons make it two?

If you’d like to save this recipe, you can pin it from here.

Lemon & blueberry cheesecake

Print recipe Pin recipe

Cook Time 1 15

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Ingredients

for the base

200 g/7oz Hobnobs
75 g/3oz butter melted

for the filling

500 g/17½oz cream cheese
350 g/12oz blueberries fresh or frozen
3 lemons zest & juice
200 g/7oz caster sugar
3 eggs
150 ml/5fl oz sour cream

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 150ºC/300ºF/Gas mark 2
Grease the sides of a 20cm/8-inch spring-form cake tin
In a small saucepan, melt the butter
In a food processor, add the Hobnobs and grind to a fine crumb
Add the ground biscuits to the butter and combine
Empty the mixture into the base of the tin and smooth the surface evenly using the back of a tablespoon
Bake the base for about 15 minutes then set aside to cool while you make the cake mixture
Zest & juice the lemons. Set aside
In the food processor you used to crumb the biscuit, add half the blueberries and lemon juice and purée
In a stand mixer (or large mixing bowl if doing it by hand) add the cream cheese, sour cream and sugar and mix thoroughly
Gently whisk the eggs in a measuring jug before adding them to the cheese mixture in 3 stages, mixing well after each addition
Add the puréed blueberry & lemon juice mixture followed by the lemon zest, making sure it's well incorporated
Boil a kettleful of water
Before pouring the cheesecake mixture into the tin, wrap the tin in foil to make it water tight
Put the tin into an oven tray (at least 5cm/1-inch deep)
Pour the cheesecake mixture into the tin and put the oven tray & cake into the preheated oven
Fill the oven tray to about ½cm/¼-inch below the rim with the boiled water
Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes
When cooked, turn off the oven and allow the cheesecake to cool in the oven, with the door ajar
When completely cool, top with the other half of the blueberries and put in the fridge

Lemon & blueberry cheesecake ingredients

Keyword baked cheesecake, blueberries, blueberry, cheesecake, lemon

Cakes & Bakes: Rhubarb and berry shortcake pie

We have a rhubarb plant growing in a dolly tub our garden that hasn’t done at all well this year. The stalks normally stand tall and to attention but they seem to have lost their va va voom. They’re thin and bendy from the weight of their huge leaves. I decided to chop them all down today in the hope that they’d revive with more vigour next year.

We also still have an ice cream tub full of frozen blackberries that we picked late last summer. We kept some back when we did our jam & jelly making to use in compotes, crumbles etc. Ripening fruits are already in evidence on this year’s bushes so I thought I’d clear out the freezer in readiness for the new crop.

I found and adapted a rhubarb, blueberry and strawberry shortcake pie recipe found in Pie: Delicious sweet and savoury pies and pastries from steak and onion pie to pecan tart by Dean Brettschneider. It’s very much like a cobbler and is delicious hot or cold with vanilla ice cream, cream or – my favourite – a dollop of Rodda’s classic Cornish clotted cream!

Rhubarb and berry shortcake pie

Print recipe Pin recipe

Cook Time 30

Total Time 30

Ingredients

For the shortbread
125 g butter softened & cubed
125 g caster sugar
1 egg
225 g plain flour
25 g cornflour
1 tsp baking powder
For the filling
3 –4 stalks rhubarb
3 tbsp Demerara sugar
250 g fresh or frozen blackberries
125 g fresh or frozen blueberries

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 200°C/400ºF/Gas mark 6
Line a shallow 20–22cm round cake tin or flan dish with baking/parchment paper
Put the cubed butter and caster sugar into a medium mixing bowl and, using a hand-held electric whisk, combine until light and fluffy
Add the egg before sifting in the flour, cornflour and baking powder. Combine until just mixed
Press the dough evenly over the bottom of the tin/dish
Set aside the remainder of the dough, covering it with cling film
Trim & slice the rhubarb before putting it into a large, non-stick frying pan
Sprinkle over the Demerara sugar
Put the pan over a low heat shaking the pan occasionally, until fruit is almost tender
Add the blackberries & blueberries to the rhubarb, gently mix for a few seconds before turning off the heat and allowing the fruit to cool
Spread the lukewarm fruit over the shortbread base before carefully dabbing pinches of the leftover dough over the top, allowing a little of the fruit to peep through
Bake for 30 minutes or until the shortcake top turns golden brown
Remove from oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire cooling rack and then onto a serving plate
Sprinkle the top with icing sugar, slice and serve!