Business Time

Bear with me- the next few posts are going to be shamelsss promotion of my new baking and cooking business palmerbee. I just started it in June and so far I've done nineteen orders! Very exciting- or at least I'm very excited. Not too bad for a history major/ art history minor with zero business sense and even less math skills (I had to take algebra twice- enough said).

This first recipe is one of my all time favorites. Its a Chocolate Raspberry Pavlova from Nigella Lawson's cookbook "Forever Summer." Whenever I bake it, the gorgeous pavlova is reduced to crumbs in a ridiculously short amount of time. I had one woman order this for Friday, and on Saturday she ordered another one to be delivered straight away!
Nigella Lawson's cookbooks were some of the first ones I attempted to cook from when I was around twelve or thirteen. Those were awkward years for many reasons (the haircut that made me look like one of the Beatles? Flared jeans?) but certainly for my lack of culinary skills. I made a whole series of absolutely atrocious things (they can't even really be called food because they were inedible), but finally started to get the hang of it as I worked my way through Nigella's books. Both the Food Network and The Cooking Channel have started airing her show again- which you have to watch both for the amazing recipes and for Nigalla's sassy unabashed passion for food. Any woman who ends her show bathrobe-clad at midnight, paddling down to the fridge for a few more bites of whatever decadent dish she made that day is certainly one I want to watch.

Recipe:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and line a baking sheet with some parchment paper.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat six large egg whites untill they are all satiny and marshmallow-y. If you have trouble getting egg whites to cooperate, make shure they are right out of the fridge, and try sticking your bowl and beater in the fridge for a bit before you use it.

With the mixer running, add one cup of granulated sugar spoonful by spoonful, and beat until the egg whites have been transformed into into a big glossy stiff pouf that sticks to the beater and holds firm peaks.

Sprinkle over three or four tablespoons of good coco powder, a splash (around a teaspoon) balsamic vinegar, the same amount of vanilla extract, and two or three ounces of dark chocolate (around 70% coco), chopped as finely as you can muster.

Gently fold all that chocolate into the egg whites, working under and over so you don't deflate the egg whites. Don't be too timid though, you want everything well mixed, and the egg whites can take a bit of mushing around.

Pile the mixture onto the prepared pan, and form into a big fat disk. Don't smooth it out too much though- you want some peaks to get a balance of crisped and soft meringue. Place in the middle of the oven, and then immediately lower the temperature to 300 degrees. This gives you the crispy crust while still keping the middle soft and delicious.

Bake for around an hour. You'll know its done when, according to Nigella, "it should look crisp around the edges and on the sides and be dry on top, but when you prod the center you should feel the promise of squidginess beneath your fingers."

Turn off the oven and open the door slightly, allowing the meringue to cool completly beofre taking it out. When you're ready to serve, plate the meringue and top with some freshly whipped heavy cream (about 8 ounces) mixed with a bit of vanilla extract and a bit of sugar. Pile the whipped cream into the sunken crater that formed as the meringue cooled, and then top with any combination of berries you have on hand. Raspberries are beautiful, but strawberries work nicely as well. You could also do passion fruit or pomegranate seeds in the winter when berries are exorbitantly priced and flown in from far-off places. If you want to get fancy, you can top the berries with some chopped chocolate, powdered sugar, or coco powder.