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Jesse Szewczyk:<\/strong> I’m Jesse Szewczyk.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
Shilpa Uskokovic:<\/strong> And I’m Shilpa Uskokovic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> We are both senior Test Kitchen editors at Bon App\u00e9tit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> And this is BA Bake Club.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> Bake Club is Bon App\u00e9tit’s book club, but it’s for baking.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> We’re creating the nerdiest and most wholesome corner of the baking internet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> Every month we publish a recipe on bonappetit.com that introduces a baking concept we think you should know.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> Then you’ll bake, send us any questions you have or pictures of your finished creations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> And then we’ll go get together here on the podcast to talk about the recipe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> The January Bake Club recipe, bagels, is live now on bonAppetit.com and we’ll tell you a bit about it at the end of the episode.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> But today we’re going to be talking about a dessert that is crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and decadent throughout. Shilpa of all the layered delights in all the world, why bring this one to the Bake Club?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> Okay. To be clear, I think we need to let everyone know that it’s a pavlova, the layered desser.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> Did I lead this up too dramatically?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> No, no, it’s great. That was the best part.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> Thank you. Thank you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> You gave that to me on a silver platter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> The dessert that Jesse talks about is December’s Bake Club recipe, which is a cherry chocolate pavlova. And I have long loved a pavlova, but in many ways that has been a challenge for me historically until I broke the code a few years ago and I felt what if we could distill all of this information that I’ve learned to our Bake Club readers and give them that same boost in confidence in mastering a pavlova, which in walls essentially, it’s essentially a meringue, which is a very fundamental preparation, I would say in the pastry world, which we use in many different ways. And I thought it was a perfect challenge for December, especially. It was particularly festive and it’s a great dessert to share with people and it’s quite the talk of the town if you make it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> It is really good. I’ve probably eaten an entire slab to myself during the testing process. Okay. But before we get too far, let’s cue some jaunty how to music. There we go. Shilpa, can you walk us through the basic steps of this recipe?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> Yes. As in every recipe of mine, there will be mostly three parts, but I guess in this one there’s a fourth one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> Yes. And no cream cheese. Is this the first? Maybe. So I’ll go from the bottom up. It starts with the meringue shell and then it’s topped off with cream and a ganache. And I think something important to note about the cream here in my pavlova is it’s unsweetened and I’ll explain why. And then you have the cream, you have a chocolate ganache that’s bitter sweet and really compliments the meringue shell very nicely. And then the star of the show in many ways are the boozy cherries, which I use frozen cherries and then macerate them and cook them off in like a very alcohol rich syrup and they get shiny and glossy. They get thrown on there on top of the whipped cream, and then it’s topped off with chocolate shavings. So all in all, a very beautiful dessert.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> It is. It’s very dramatic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> Well, there are a few different elements in this dessert, like you discussed, and they have some techniques, each one of them, but maybe we start with the foundation, the pavlova of it all. So do we want to talk about the meringue?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> This is probably the most complicated part of the pavlova, the meringue. And I mean, it is the part of the pavlova. I mean, what is a pavlova without its base of macerate? There are two things that sets pavlova apart from any other kind of meringue. And it is the addition of these two ingredients, which are corn starch and vinegar. You don’t usually find those in other meringues, which at its base, a meringue is a mixture of egg whites and sugar. I take salt for granted, so I’m not going to say that, but of course it’s always salt as well. But pavlova is unique in that it has these two ingredients, which along with how high you build your meringue base, they help add to the marshmallow-y texture that in my mind defines a pavlova.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> Which was… I’m trying to find the word, not a heated discussion, but I feel like people in the test kitchen who maybe aren’t familiar with the pavlova are like, “Why isn’t this crisp?”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> And I had to come running to Shilpa’s defense like, “It’s not supposed to be.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> Yes. Thank you, Jesse. You were a knight in shining armor for the pavlova. Pavlova thanks you for your service because you really saved the moment there. There were a few tasters in the test kitchen who, as you said, were surprised that the meringue wasn’t crisp all the way through.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> Because I think when you hear meringue, you think of those little kisses in the tub.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> The super crispy, airy-<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> Yes, like astronaut food, kind of. Yes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> Oh, I love that. It is like astronaut food. And to many others. The defining characteristic of pavlova is it has a crispy outer shell and the inside of it is very marshmallow-y. I won’t say bordering on custard-y. I don’t think that feels accurate, but it’s tender.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> Yeah. It’s like the sister to whipped cream almost.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> And I think that reflects the texture of the cream on top and that’s what makes pavlova work so well as a dessert is it has all of these contrasting flavors and textures and levels of sweetness. And here’s my takeaway when you make a meringue. Any meringue that you make, whether it’s for pavlova or not, I would say adding cream of tartar is non-negotiable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> Oh, and for those listening, can you explain what that is?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> Cream of tartar is actually a byproduct of the wine industry, and it’s an acidic white powder that is very potent. And when you add it to egg whites, and also typically cream of tartar can be very easily found in most supermarkets. You know where you find all of the other spices?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> Yeah, it’s like a half size little baby.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> Yeah. It’s a little baby.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> Yeah. That lasts a lifetime.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> And most people might know it for its inclusion in snickerdoodle cookies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> Because it’s got that taste, like a slight puckery taste ever so slightly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> Yes. It’s very tart. And the great thing about adding cream of tartar to a meringue is it essentially prevents the egg whites from being over-whipped. And there is such a thing as when you whip egg whites, that there comes a point when they go through different stages. First it’s like foamy, looks like waves breaking on a beach, like very foamy. And then as you keep whipping it further, it changes its structure. Then it becomes like hair mousse. And then it becomes very like, I want to say shaving cream, much more tight and very bright white. And then that’s the perfect texture depending on what you’re making, of course. But if you push your meringue beyond that, the egg whites can break out of suspension essentially and then they become cottony, I would say.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> Yes, like dry and brittle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> Yeah. It’s like a water balloon can only hold so much water. It’s like the same concept.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> That’s a great way to put it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> Like a meringue can only hold that much air.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> So what are we going for here?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> So when you add the cream of tartar, there’s a chemical reaction that happens and it prevents the egg white bonds from essentially sticking to each other and prevents them from over-whipping.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> And I did this experiment side by side when I did the pavlova. I ran two meringue bases, one with and one without. And in the pavlova, it’s slightly less evident if you skip the cream of tartar because there’s so much sugar that it acts like an insulator and of prevents the egg whites from over-whipping. But when you bake it off, there was a difference. The one with that cream of tartar was a little bit crisper and it was a little bit more dry and brittle. Whereas the one that had cream of tartar preserved its integrity and really held onto that marshmallow-y texture.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> Interesting. And you said corn starch as well, right?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> There is corn starch. That is one… The corn starch in the vinegar. Okay. The vinegar I have an explanation for because the acidity of the vinegar in many ways, like cream of tartar, it cuts through the sweetness of the meringue. Think about Coca-Cola and how you’re able to drink a can of Coke, even though it contains so much sugar because it’s also so acidic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> And so much acid too, because it’s so sugary, the opposite. Yeah.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> Which is very interesting experiment. And in many ways, the vinegar acts as a tempering agent for all the sugar and the meringue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> And there is a vivid difference. Many times when I made the pavlova, I’ve taken a spoonful of the meringue before adding the vinegar and after. And it’s dramatic how the vinegar alters the flavor perception and the perception of sweetness-<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n
SU:<\/strong> … in the meringue. The corn starch, why it works and why it contributes to the marshmallow-y texture, I will never be able to explain. I haven’t figured out the answer. And if somebody who’s listening knows, please come to me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n
JS:<\/strong> Interesting. I wonder if it has something to do with some insurance of moisture affecting it. You know what I mean?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n