2014 A to Z Blogging Challenge - L is for Layered meringue pavlova with Flavor King plums

Heating the sugar before you make meringue? A new idea, but turned out very well:

No recipe for this one.... yet. You'll have to wait till this book is out as I was testing out the pav recipe from there before it's printed. You heat the sugar in the oven till it goes golden at the edges then mix it into the whipped egg whites - not so different from Italian meringue really. Adds a slight caramelised flavour & look - nice!

You make 3 meringues and layer them up with whipped vanilla cream and fruit. I did it here in January for a lunch party with South African Flavor King plums which were in season at the time - they're a cross between plums and apricots and very morish!

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Pflaumen baisertorte - Flavour King plum meringue pie with pistachio ice cream for our annual Cheltenham Race Week dinner

"You're eating that ice cream..... like a teenage girl!" says Henry at last Thursday's dinner party [#kitchenbanter]

Me?

You know that pistachio ice cream you get at Italian geleaterias? Disappointing huh? Never quite tastes how you want it to. I've been meaning to try making it for years. Last Wednesday night I finally got round to it. It is now my new favourite ice cream!

There are 2 routes you can go down with ice cream - the custard based route or the Phildelphia style (without egg - not because it contains Philadelphia cheese) route. I much prefer the Philadelphia version for my events - saves so may problems with pregnant guests, who, although I would use pasteurised egg still are wary of eating it.  Better safe than sorry!
I use the Philadelphia ice cream recipe from the book (now fallen apart at the spine) that I got in '95 - the summer I'd finished A levels and tested many of the recipes during that summer with the fruit from our garden - Ices: The Definitive Guide.

Pistachio ice cream. Precious.

Take a basic Philadelphia style ice cream mix and add pistachios. Lots of them! I think that's where ice cream manufacturers go wrong - there's no point scrimping on the main ingredient! To make another type of ice cream you can miss out the pistachios and add something else using the same recipe - fruit puree for example or another of my favourites is a ginger version - add ginger wine (about 150 ml) and chopped stem ginger.

375ml   Milk
50g      Caster sugar
125ml  Condensed milk
250ml  Double cream
Pinch of salt
250g   Green pistachio nuts.

Should make 1 litre. (I doubled this)

Heat a small bit of the milk in a pan with the sugar till the sugar melts. No point putting all the milk in - just takes longer to cool down, so longer time till you can start making ice cream. 

Blitz the pistachios in your food processor. Pulse it first so the pistachio nuts are just crushed. Take away maybe 1/5 of these pulsed nuts to add in at the end. Then carry on blitzing the remaining nuts to infinity - or as long as you can manage. Eventually it turns into a paste like the above - a ball of nutty madness. 

Blend all  the remaining ingredients + reserved pistachios together with the sugar/ milk mix and churn in the ice cream machine. If you don't have an ice cream machine there is a link to still freezing method here. 

FAQ How much ice cream for one portion?

500 ml ice cream does 8 scoops.

Mini plum meringue pie for a lunch buffet delivery the following day.

Oh - you want a recipe for the plum meringue pie as well? Well no time - there's the weekend just gone to clear up from, washing up to do, emails to answer and a new week to organise.

But, like every dish just break down the prep:

• Pastry case tips here. 
• Vanilla poached plums mixed with a little bramley apple puree to thicken it. Actually I roasted them this time - same way you do with rhubarb.
• Italian meringue using this recipe. Pipe it on top & blow torch it/ bake it. If you bake it you can also heat up the plum filling.  

Random fact

Pistachio nuts are not nuts. They're fruit.


Related posts:

Lemon meringue pie
Baileys ice cream
Vanilla poached plums
Zwetschgenkuchen - German plum cake

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Zwetschgenkuchen - German plum cake

Zwetschgenkuchen - German plum cake from this recipe using South African Flavor King plums - I think flavorking should be  a verb - the 2014 equivalent of 'twerking'. When your trying out/ inventing new recipes you're 'flavorking'!
Flavor King plums taste like a cross between plums and apricots and have a bubble gum type flavour - so nice, so morish!

 It was interesting cooking at the South African fruit meal for MsMarmitelover then following via twitter her trip to South Africa where the fruit is grown:

25 year + investment! Promise of high returns, but also such a risky business - who knows what demand and the market in general is going to be like in 25 years? They are taking a leap!
Also so many other factors involved - exchange rates, seasonality: the South African stone fruit season is in the UK winter so we don't naturally think of buying plums, nectarines, peaches etc because for us they seem out of season at that time, whereas in fact they are peaking and so amazing! Add in that our fruit consumption is actually going down anyway, pest control, other stone fruit markets which could increase their yields (China, Australia, Chile etc) and it's a really tough business!

Pretty sad isn't it - 3 times more money spent on promoting vodka than fresh fruit? But also telling of our times. I have also been aware of this supermarket mark up of fruit and veg for the last few years - compare it with what we pay wholesale in the catering industry and you see why supermarkets are making such high returns. Along with that, however, is the high level of wastage which supermarkets have with fruit and veg - this is all incorporated into the high prices.

I liked the scientists' answer to the fruit fly problem though - isn't technology amazing!? 

From all of that.... to these:

Amazing to think of the industry behind the food you eat ain't it!?

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