Monday, October 30, 2006

New Experiments

What do you do when you find you have like lots of and lots of spare egg white??? It's quite exasperating actually. You can either 1. make a large omelette, 2. make a pavlova.

Most times, egg whites will be used up, when recipes call for separation of egg and state. ie, for chiffon cakes, lemon meringue pies...but not for tiramisus, though while some recipes incorporate the egg white into the filling, mine doesn't, so for every yolk I have, there's be the balance egg white.

So anyway, on Saturday, I had told my raya open house host that I'll bring a sticky date pudding, but after baking it, it seemed a tad tiny. Although I used a 8" round tin instead of square tin, it still seemed very shallow. KSL pointed out maybe it was meant to be shallow, like a brownie. But the taste seemed to go down quite well with everyone. It's a different texture to the one sold my my friend, Mrs McGregor. Her's seems to be more springy and spongy, whereas mine is more like a dense cake. But as I said, the taste was fine, rather delicious if I may say so myself.


So, to rectify the small looking cake, I thought I'd attempt a pavolva of sorts, but stupidly, didn't bother referring to the books, so just whipped up the meringue (yes, the kenwood whips egg whites stupendously well), plonked them onto baking tray and baked on low heat. Wasn't till after that I read that you need to add cornflour la, vinegar la, this la that la. So, my meringue never hardened. Nevertheless it still did not deter me from turning it into a strawberry meringue. Which to me tasted okay, if you like meringue.



While we're on the topic of meringues, indeed, the kenwood does whip egg white really well, and for 5 my egg whites, I've never managed to get such a tall meringue before. I'm not sure how the cooked texture tasted like, but I reckon it looks good. The lemon meringue pie below was an order for Sunday.

15 comments:

Karen said...

mmm, that strawberry pav looks good! i had 9 eggwhites left over this weekend, after making a sugee cake with THIRTEEN yolks and only 4 whites. i would make pavs, but everyone i know find them too sweet wor...

fatboybakes said...

i also find pavlovas too sweet. i wonder if its possible to reduce sugar content without affecting the texture....
btw, how was the suji cake?

Karen said...

i've asked my nigella friends before. apparently, the pav wont be so high, and it will taste eggy. but i never tried lah. nigella's chocolate pav is nice. still sweet, but nice. you should try that, give Delicious a run for it's money!

it was my first sugee cake, and according to my friends, nice. (hard for me to tell, because i don't like sugee cakes, no matter how nice! but friend wanted to order for christmas, so i had to try. used the recipe from Kuali)

Karen said...

eh? is it suji or sugee? or sugi?

fatboybakes said...

oddly enough, i cant seem to find the word sugee in western dictionaries...usually its semolina. and in manglish, i guess it could be anything, suji, sugee, soojee, sugi... dunno lah, its a eurasian specialty right?

Karen said...

yar, only when i was researching for recipes 3 nights ago did i find out it's a eurasian speciality for weddings and christmas! so surprised. and i agree, it is some kind of local word. the semolina cakes in western recipe books are quite different right? the ones i have seem to be of greek origin, involves pouring syrup over after cake is baked.

Anonymous said...

Can I suggest making Biscotti with the egg whites?

SC

fatboybakes said...

but me not real biscotti fan wor. i guess lazy la, there are heaps of recipes to try with egg white. been procrastinating flourless orange cake oso....yawn yawn....

Anonymous said...

urmmm, the mention of orange cakes compels me to comment; i love orange cakes, esp those those wet and dense ones which are drenched in orange juice....(i even love them slightly unbaked at the bottom in the centre)

Anonymous said...

u can make angel cakes too =)

Anonymous said...

How abt macaroons? It's like making mini meringues but you can add colour. Makes a great kiddie bribe or can crush them and sprinkle them over frosted cakes..

fatboybakes said...

lariest, what are angel cakes?

sarah, yaaaaaaaar, what a great idea, macaroons..in fact i was JUST thinking about that the other day, wondering what are those crunchy stuff people put on cakes....i think bayu used to serve a cake with crushed macaroons...

Anonymous said...

it's a sponge-like cake but lighter than sponge cake that uses a lot of egg whites (usually about 10-12 per cake) but does not involve using any egg yolks or butter/oil.

fatboybakes said...

oh yar yar, angel food cake as opposed to devil food cake, which is the exact opposite, ie, LOTS of butter, and very unhealthy. but angel cakes sound so healthy....who wants to eat healthy cakes????

Anonymous said...

but it tastes good eventhough it's healthy hehe...although a lil bit on the sweet side...but i think if u can find something that complements it nicely, it can become a good dessert :) or if u can manage to find splenda to substitute the sugar, it'll be a dieter's dream come true!