Raspberry & Lychee Pavlova

When I visited legendary pastry chef Dominique Ansel’s eponymous bakery in New York a few weeks ago (I wrote about the adventure and the subsequent canelé experiments in my previous post), I managed to get my paws on a raspberry and lychee pavlova. One of the staff members had told me it was her favourite dessert in the pastry display case and, since it was also the most eye-catching one, I had to try it.

Reverse-engineered version of famous pastry chef Dominique Ansel's raspberry and lychee pavlova

Ansel’s website describes the raspberry and lychee pavlova as “light-as-air lychee meringue filled with fresh raspberries, raspberry jam, mascarpone whipped ganache, and lychee whipped ganache.” The pastry was splendid; the meringue was crunchy on the outside but chewy on the inside, with just the lightest hints of lychee flavour. The ganaches complemented the raspberries wonderfully.

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Devil’s Food Cake

I hate baking layer cakes. I am absolutely terrible at making them because I can’t frost a cake to save my life. That’s why I usually make entremets. With a pastry ring, you don’t need frosting skills. All you need are pouring skills, and I’ve got those.

Sinful dark chocolate devil's food cake with raspberries. Click for the AMAZING recipe!

There are so many pretty layer cakes all over the web, and whenever I see one it makes me sad. I just don’t get how the frosting on cakes can be so smooth when mine turn out positively awful. I’ve read countless tutorials and made lots of layer cakes over the years, but I’m never happy with how they are. Flavour wise, they’re great. The cake and the frosting are almost always delicious. The appearance? Well, that’s another story.

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Mogador Macarons

I’ve made countless batches of macarons over the last month, experimenting with all sorts of flavours. These, the Mogador macaron by Pierre Hermé, are one of my favourite flavours.

Passion fruit & milk chocolate French macarons on a plate... but wouldn't they be better in your mouth? Click to get the recipe!

The egg shell thick shell gives way to a pillowy almond meringue and a decadent, floral passion fruit-milk chocolate ganache. The acidity of the passion fruit balanced the sweetness of the milk chocolate nicely. They were totally worth risking my life for. Consume more content