It’s Vegan Week! Not gonna lie, I was slightly nervous about
how this would go. I’ve never tried a fully vegan bake... every bake I’ve ever
done has either included butter or eggs. So because it was such a special (and
nerve-wracking week) I put my #bakeoffbakealong bake into the hands of my
friend, who is dairy free.
She picked the pavlova and my nerves then kinda skyrocketed.
After a quick spending trip on ingredients, I prepped on
Friday (because bake off rules clearly don’t apply for time) with the pastry
cream and then made the meringue and assembled on Saturday.
I did not anticipate it taking me this long to complete it.
Yes, I did take a tea break half way and I did bake an extra meringue layer
(which may have been my downfall later on), but still – I swear it didn’t take
the bakers this long to do it all.
I thought the fruit prep would be the quickest part, but
again, I was wrong. That takes time... a lot of it. I, personally, didn’t see
much value to the white chocolate on the base of the meringues, other than
maybe helping to hold it together, but for me – it didn’t set and held no
purpose.
The pastry cream was what surprised me the most and it was
pretty much my favourite part. I subbed coconut yoghurt for some alpro vanilla
yoghurt as I didn’t want too much of a coconutty taste throughout and it worked
beautifully.
I would absolutely make the pastry cream again, without a
doubt. Combined with the fruit, it was delicious and sweet and had the exact
same consistency and look of pastry cream.
The “meringue” mixture was also the same consistency that
you would expect with meringue, stringy and held its shape. Baked beautiful,
but sunk a bit after removing from the oven. I ended up with three layers, just
because the mixture allowed it really.
During assembly, in true bake off fashion, I had a slight
casualty and a bit of the pavlova started to come away because of the weight.
Which is understandable, because that’s a lot of fruit. So while I was typing
on a boomerang of the perfectly formed pavlova, it was falling away from itself
before I had even taken photos.
If you do make this pavlova I would highly vote against
assembly in advance. Assemble and serve straight away! It seems that any
moisture that touches the meringue just immediately dissolves it. It doesn’t
keep that well for next day eating either. I would advise to make and devour in
the same day in order to eat it in its prime.
Overall, would I make another vegan meringue? Only if I was
asked to. But I would definitely make that pastry cream again.
I was so sad to see Jon go last week. He was such a solid
favourite of mine. Kebab week in his honour? I do have one thought though for
Bake Off this week, what on earth did they do with all of those left over
chickpeas? Because I struggled with just two cans worth!
Add your comment