Kitsch-en Kounter: Pink Lemonade Pavlova

It may seem supremely un-wacky tacky, but the fact is that I have a passion for film noir.  I think it is because I am particularly simple-minded, not always understanding the many convolutions of plot but usually able to grasp the concept of good guy and bad.  I rather enjoy the exaggerated stylings of both the fast-paced, slang-ridden dialogue and the crisp, well-tailored clothing and hats (film noir has the best costuming).  As much as it is film noir's biggest cliché, I am nevertheless amused when characters are marked as "hard-boiled."  I would relish the opportunity to be so described.  I couldn't even be described as soft boiled.  At this point, the best I can ever hope for is "poached" - gelatinous, ghostly white, and ultimately, quite runny.

As disgusting as eggs (and their human counterparts) are when pondered too deeply, I can't help but love them.  Over-easy, scrambled, coddled, or fried, I will take an egg just about any way it comes.  When in Japan, we went to a hip pizza joint in Kyoto that served both our pizza and our salad with quivering poached eggs atop, baptized so briefly in boiling water that they appeared to be held together by prayer alone.  Wanting to avoid the nightmare of every international traveler (a raging case of salmonella poisoning), everyone in our party rather coyly ate all the way around the eggs.  Mary said that if she was going to get any kind of food poisoning, she wanted it to come from subpar sushi or contaminated horse meat.  Feeling brave, I finally broke the yolk; the velvety, richly-golden goodness that flowed therefrom blessed every remaining bite of that meal.

Where do baby bunnies come from?
Easter eggs!

Yes, eggs are magical - except for the gross white stringy part.  Because they are so versatile and so symbolic of the Easter season, I wanted to highlight eggs in our Easter Kitsch-en Kounter recipe, using them in two ways that I had never had the temerity to use them before.  I have always wanted to make a Pavlova, that pillowy, '20s-era, meringue confection from New Zealand named for Russia's greatest ballerina, Anna Pavlova.  Given that it is Easter, I thought I'd make the pavlova a pale pink.  Options for filling a pink pavlova are endless but in my best effort to again feature the humble egg, I opted for a thick, rich lemon curd.  I can't tell if it was a good idea to combine two things I'd never made before into one Easter dessert but as in many cases, ignorance can be empowering, if not entirely blissful.

The Pink Lemonade Easter Pavlova
A blissful view this ain't but blissfully delicious it was!!!
There really was no good side from which to take the finished product's photo but I
suppose it is as important to share the ecstasy of victory as well as the agony of defeat.
Fortunately, a bed of dyed-green coconut makes everything better.

For both the crackly, crumbly (and maybe under-baked) pavlova and the smooth, luscious lemon curd I will take full credit.  As I was ad lib-ing a meringue recipe for the pavlova, I thought to myself, "This baking stuff is easy.  I don't know why the experts always make it sound like such an exact science..."  I guess that's because it is.  Removing the pink, lemon-perfumed pavlova from the oven, it looked perfectly puffed and pretty; as it cooled it started to rapidly deflate.  When it came time to assemble it, it started cracking around the edges.  Undeterred, I figured the lemon curd (made with strict adherence to recipe guidelines), the pink mommy & me Easter bunnies, the speckled eggs, and the bed of freshly-mown coconut grass would be enough to disguise its many imperfections.  As delicious as the lemon curd was, its powers to save the pavlova pile-up were quite limited.  As with most Kitsch-en Kounter experiments, it comes down to a matter of the tortoise and the hare; taste reigns supreme, with looks running a very distant second.  Actually, I can't be sure if that makes "taste" the tortoise of the hare...

Thinking that I might get ambitious and make a black & white pavlova as
a tribute to film noir, I went ahead and made a chocolate bunny as well.
Based on the "roaring success" of the pink pavlova, I figured I'd let
sleeping Easter Bunnies lie...especially since their unblinking, beady,
pink eyes kept following me around the room.

Are you making any special recipes for Easter this year?  Have you ever experienced a triumph in making a pavlova?  With a video of the triumphant Anna Pavlova dancing her signature piece, "The Dying Swan" (an accurate reflection of our pavlova), we wish you and yours a very Happy Easter!

"The Dying Swan" - Anna Pavlova

Cheers!

Mr. Tiny

Kitsch-en Kounter: Bûche de Pâques

One needn't ponder long before remembering the true meaning of Easter - renewal, rebirth, resurrection.  All of these beautiful messages come with their own springtime symbols - a blossoming flower, a hatchling bird, a world reborn after months of frigid winter (as a lifelong Southern California native, I'll just have to believe that last one to be true).

With rebirth on the brain, I wondered what I could create in the wacky tacky kitsch-en that would represent a seasonally-appropriate gastronomic resurrection.  Without sounding too irreverent, I concluded that there is no better time of year to resurrect a classic symbol of the Christmas season, born again with an Easter Holiday twist!  The Bûche de Noël or Yule Log, is a rolled cake meant to resemble a fallen, winter, woodland log found during Christmas.  Figuring that if it is good enough for the birth then it's good enough for the resurrection, I came up with the "Bûche de Pâques" or "Easter Log" (even if you have no idea what it means, it's a name that sounds much more appetizing in French).

I had all my decorations ready but I didn't take many progress shots because I had never
made a rolled cake before - nerve wracking!  Using a recipe for a coconut-almond genoise,
I found that the cake went together much more easily than I had expected.  Although our
decorations skew Easter, I'm thinking that this cake (made without leavening agents)
might qualify as a Passover offering too - maybe adorned with Passover Possums?!!!

As ever, my visions of professional, cake-decorating perfection narrowly exceeded the spindly grasp of my pitiful pastry prowess.  Nevertheless, having become well acquainted with abject kitsch-en failure (believe it or not, I only show you the "successes"), I am mostly satisfied with the outcome.  The only concession in failure (or mild satisfaction) is that an ugly cake can still be a tasty cake!

Voila!  Mon Bûche de Pâques!!!
Perhaps the English name could be "Rabbit Roulade" or "Bunny Braciole;"
but then we get into the territory of wondering whether Peter Cottontail is
simply on the cake or in the cake...

Nestled on a bed of tinted coconut, the cake (a peeling birch log) is frosted with a coconut buttercream accented by a ganache made of  coconut milk and chocolate.  The bird and "Happy Easter" banner came from the reject room of a cake supply store; I highlighted the bird's features by painting it with the same chocolate ganache.  The toadstools are meringue cookies hand-painted with food coloring.  The blue, vintage Easter bunny was removed from a thrift store wreath - and thoroughly sanitized! 

In preparation for sharing the Bûche de Pâques with you, I obviously made it several days in advance of the Easter Holiday.  Not one to let a good cake go uncelebrated,  I repurposed it as a birthday cake to commemorate Mary's 21st birthday.

HAPPY EASTER BIRTHDAY, MARY!!!
She never knew the difference....

Other than the Bûche de Pâques, the Easter preparations are essentially over around here.  With no children around, there are less eggs to dye and less handfuls of jelly beans and chocolate eggs to surreptitiously rescue from unwatched Easter baskets - the real benefit being the absence of Easter grass to find everywhere, all year long, until next Easter no matter how often we sweep, vacuum, dust, swiffer, lint roll, etc.  Truly, the break is a bit of a relief from the veritable Easter Egg factory that is usual around these parts; we'll just have to get that old Easter feeling from the "Egg Cracker Suite."

"Egg Cracker Suite"

We wish you all the best for a very Happy Easter!!!


Cheers!

Mr. Tiny