Chocolate Pavlova with White Chocolate Strawberry Mascarpone Mousse and Mascarpone Cream
The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard.
Another month, another challenge. I was very pleased with this one. We were challenged to make chocolate pavlovas! It was my premiere. I've never made pavlovas before. Everything was quite o.k. except the pavlova "meringue". I followed the recipe step by step, but it kept falling - it wasn't fluffy at all. So I tried another batch with less cocoa powder. The meringue was "tougher", but still quite runny. I didn't have the strength to make yet another batch, because I was afraid of it would not be o.k. again. Plus what would I do with so huge lot of meringue?
So I tried to shape the second batch into hearts. Eventually it wasn't that bad, but they were pretty flat. But nevermind, I'd say mine were much more real meringues than pavlovas, because they were nothing but crunchy.
I made the Creme Anglaise the same day as pavlovas. I liked it pretty much, so I had tough times with making myself not eat it all. Fortunately I had overeaten sooner that day, otherwise there wouldn't be any creme anglaise left :)
Then I continued with the mascarpone cream. At first I wanted it to be strawberry flavoured, but I didn't want to "destroy" its creamy flavour so I let it be.
My mascarpone white chocolate mousse was supposed to be pink in color. To make it happen I used pureed strawberries instead of Grand Marnier. Well, it didn't affected the color at all. Now I'm a little sad I didn't add more of them, but still I'm afraid the mousse would be runny with more strawberries. However, when it's decorated with strawberries all these minus points are lost, because of the freshness and sweetness of them :)
