Strawberry Pavlova

Of course, I meant to have fancy chocolate drizzles on the plate, but I was in too big of a hurry to let the sauce thicken!

Ingredients:

For the meringue shells:

• 4 egg whites
• 1/8 tsp cream of tartar
• 1/3 cup of sugar
• 4 scoops stevia (Kal powder)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 2 tsp cornstarch

For cream center

• 1 pint of heavy whipping cream
• 1-2 scoops stevia (optional)

For topping

• 1 pint fresh strawberries
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1-2 scoops stevia
• chocolate shavings

For chocolate sauce (optional)

• 1 T unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 scoop stevia
• 1/4 cup water

Directions

1. Beat room temperature egg whites until the are frothy
2. Add the cream of tartar and beat until gentle peaks form
3. Add sugar about 1 T at a time while continuously beating egg whites until stiffer peaks form
4. Add stevia and beat for another few seconds to blend
5. Fold in the lemon juice and the cornstarch
6. Scoop the mixture into a large zipper bag and cut off a corner to form nests on cookie sheets. I used a decorator tip even to make them pretty. (I put parchment paper sprinkled with cornstarch on my cookie sheets and the nests stuck anyway. Next time I will try cooking spray.)
7. Bake for 25 minutes in a 300 degree oven (tops will be nicely browned, but you can cook them for longer at a lower temp if you prefer them to stay white).

While these are baking you can make the strawberry sauce:

1. Slice or chop all the strawberries, set aside about 1/3 of them
2. Heat the remaining 2/3 in skillet on medium heat; sprinkle sugar and stevia onto berries and mix well
3. Gently mash up berries with a potato masher once they are soft
4. Cook berries until sauce is desired thickness (4-5 minutes)
5. Add in the remaining 1/3 of berries and mix well

You can use Redi Whip to reduce calories, but the homemade whipped cream is much more delicious:

1. Pour whipping cream in a chilled bowl
2. Beat on lower speed until it starts to thicken (just so it doesn't splash out)
3. Increase speed and beat until the consistency of whipped cream
4. Add stevia to taste (authentic pavlova uses unsweetened cream which you could get away with since the meringue and berries are so sweet--my boys like licking the bowl and beaters though, so it had to be a little sweet!

Chocolate Sauce--you can use Hershey's syrup to save time, but this sauce tastes a little bitter to contrast the sweetness and has WAY less calories:

1. Mix cocoa powder and stevia in a small saucepan
2. Microwave the water to boiling (about a minute) and then whisk it into the dry mixture
3. Bring to a boil then gently simmer for 2 minutes
4. Continue heating and stirring until thickened (the mixture will also thicken as it cools, so you have to experiment to find that balance that results in a pourable sauce--clearly by my picture, I have not found it yet)

Assemble ingredients:

1. Drizzle chocolate sauce onto serving plate in a decorative fashion
2. Place meringue nest in center of plate
3. Add a dollop of cream to the center of the nest
4. Spoon strawberry topping onto cream
5. Sprinkle chocolate shavings over berries (I just used a vegetable peeler on a square of almond bark)

Nutrition Facts: 110 calories per serving or 65 per serving with Low Fat Redi Whip or Cool-Whip, Total Fat 7.5g, Saturated Fat 4.6g, Sodium 24mg, Total Carbs 9.6g, Dietary Fiber 0.9g, Protein 1.8g
Is that unbelievable or what?! 110 calories for a dessert you could serve at a fancy dinner party!
I know this sounds like a lot of work, but it can be done in stages. I think I would even make the meringue the night before (do the baking method where you leave it in the oven all night) and then eat this for breakfast! And oh the possibilities for toppings... blueberries, kiwi, banana layered under the cream... anything goes!

Meringue Cookies

Experiment #8 (part II): Improved Meringue Cookies



Vanilla with sprinkles

So this time I brushed up on my meringue skills using the Joy of Baking website. It's really the little things when making meringue. The cookies came out great this time!

Ingredients:

• 3 egg whites
• 1/8 tsp cream of tartar
• 6 T sugar (1/4 cup plus 2 T)
• 1/4 tsp stevia (I meant to use 1/4 tsp anyway... I don't know how much I really used)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1. I beat the egg whites until they were frothy, then added the cream of tartar and beat until gentle peaks formed
2. I gradually beat the sugar into the egg mixture until stiff peaks formed
3. I would have added just a 1/4 tsp of stevia at this point, but my 18 mos old was sitting next to me and he yanked the lid off the jar spraying stevia everywhere--including into the mixing bowl. I just left it at that
4. I slowly beat in the vanilla
5. At this point, I divided the mix in half and piped the plain mixture onto parchment paper and put in the oven for 25 minutes at 300 degrees
6. I folded the cocoa into the 2nd half and the mixture did start softening up a bit, but not as bad as last time
7. I also piped the cocoa mixture onto parchment paper and baked for 25 minutes at 300 degrees

Nutrition Facts:

Vanilla Cookies: 45 calories per serving of 5 cookies (40 cookies per batch) vs 150 calories per serving for cookies made with sugar, Total Fat 0.0g, Sodium 21mg, Total Carbs 9.6g, Protein 1.4g

Chocolate Cookies: 60 calories per serving of 5 cookies (30 cookies per batch) vs 200 calories per serving for cookies made with sugar, Total Fat 0.1g, Sodium 28mg, Total Carbs 13g, Protein 1.9g



Chocolate with cocoa dusting
Thoughts: These came out sooooo much better than my first attempt. Oddly, my children preferred the vanilla batch. I think it was because of the sprinkles, but my oldest actually put his chocolate cookie down and said, "Mom, this tastes really bad." My second son finished them off though, so they must have been okay for him at least. I liked them. Oh, I should add that the chocolate cookies do deflate a bit when the cocoa is mixed in. They are softer and more pancake shaped vs. the Hershey Kiss shaped vanilla cookies.
I am going to consider these my "control" batch. For future attempts, I will gradually decrease the sugar until I find the minimum amount I can use and still have nice stiff peaks.
**Note to self: I made a meringue dessert today that used 4 egg whites and 1/3 cup sugar and it came out well. Next time maybe use 4 egg whites and 1/4 cup sugar).

Chocolate Meringue Cookies

Experiment #8: Chocolate Meringue Cookies

These are in the oven at the moment and I already know these are going to be a complete and utter failure, but for the sake of journalistic integrity, here's my report!

I got the idea for these from Allrecipes.com of course, but then found a cool site called GreenLite Bites that specifically used stevia (yay!) in a meringue cookie recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 egg whites
• 1/8 tsp cream of tartar (actually I didn't use it all, maybe 1/3 of it was left)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 2 T sugar
• 1/4 tsp stevia
• 1 T unsweetened cocoa powder
• pinch of salt

1. I beat the egg whites until they were frothy, then added the cream of tartar and beat until gentle peaks formed (I should have added vanilla at this point, but I forgot)
2. I combined the sugar, stevia, and salt and slowly beat them into the egg mixture until stiffer peaks formed
3. I folded in the cocoa, but the mixture got all bubbly and started breaking down. This did not happen last time I made chocolate meringue cookies.
4. I scooped the mixture into a freezer bag and cut off a corner to squirt dollops onto a cookie sheet. This worked perfect last time, but this time they were runny.
5. I am now baking these for 25 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

Calories: 8 per cookie (made 25 cookies)
Thoughts: Ugh, I just peeked through the oven door and the cookies have flattened into road kill! There are a couple reasons this recipe may have gone wrong besides the stevia... I forgot the vanilla so added it last, or maybe the peaks weren't quite stiff enough when I folded in the cocoa. Also, I only had two eggs so I scaled the recipe to fit and who knows what happens when you do that!
Update: I took these out of the oven and they are not edible. I can barely scrape them off the cookie sheet and they taste burnt anyway --sigh-- I hate failure.
I am still excited about the possibilities of this recipe! I need more eggs, however, before I try again. Maybe I will make the next batch plain, just to get my technique down. I have made meringue cookies successfully before, but they can be tricky to get right.