Caramel Coconut Pecan Praline Pavlova

Every once in a while I get some crazy idea that works. Complicated, but delicious, this is one of those ideas. It's a conglomeration of parts of different recipes: pecan praline butter/paste and caramelized pecans from Cupcake Jemma's Vanilla Pecan Cinnamon Buns, salted caramel sauce, pavlova base, and stabilized whipped cream.

I only made this because I was making a key lime pie for my husband's birthday, and I had some extra egg whites. I also had the leftover pecan praline butter and caramelized pecans from the last time I made the Vanilla Pecan Cinnamon Buns. Aaaand I was trying to use up some heavy cream in my fridge and I had just made a bunch of salted caramel sauce. So as strange as it may sound, making this dessert just made sense to me--maybe the package of Girl Scout Samoa/Caramel De-lite cookies sitting on the counter also influenced this decision. 

It's pretty sweet, but the caramel and praline elements add just a touch of bitterness that balance it all out. Mmm. The pavlova is crisp and a little chewy, and the whipped cream is there just doing its creamy thing. I wanted to have just a touch of chocolate to give it the Samoa/Caramel De-lite vibe. Like I said, it works. 

At any rate, this is so complicated I wasn't going to bother with the recipe, but I want to have it on hand in case I want to make it again. So I'm going to try to put it all together below so that it makes sense to me and to anyone else. If you give this a go, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

*Note: You will end up with twice as much pecan praline butter and caramelized pecans as you need. You can either save those for another time, or you can make Cupcake Jemma's Vanilla Pecan Cinnamon Buns, or you can double the recipe for the other parts (pavlova merengue, caramel coconut, and whipped cream) and make one big pavlova or two of the regular ones. Just saying.

Caramel Coconut Pecan Praline Pavlova

Caramelized Pecans

    Caramelized Pecans Ingredients:

• 25g light brown sugar
• 1.5 tablespoons water
• pinch salt
• 180g toasted pecans

    Caramelized Pecans Instructions:

• Roughly chop the pecans.
• Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. 
• Place a nonstick pan over medium low heat and add the 25g brown sugar and 1.5 tablespoons water. Stir and then add the 180g chopped pecans and salt. Cook and stir over medium low heat until sugar looks dry on the outside of the pecans. Pour caramelized pecans onto a parchment lined pan to cool.

Pecan Praline Butter/Paste

    Pecan Praline Butter/Paste Ingredients:

• 150g toasted pecan halves
• 150g light brown sugar
• pinch salt

    Pecan Praline Butter/Paste Instructions:

• Line another baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Place a nonstick pan over medium-low heat. 
• Add the 150g light brown sugar. Heat sugar until it melts. You can stir it with a silicone spatula, but be careful to scrape off any sugar build up along the way. Sugar needs to be completely liquid. 
• Add the 150g pecan halves and pinch of salt to the melted sugar and stir to coat the pecans. 
• Once pecans are basically covered in molten sugar, carefully scrape all of it onto a parchment-lined pan and allow to cool completely.
• Once praline is completely cool, break it apart into the bowl of a food processor, and process until you have a relatively smooth paste. Scrape into a bowl or clean pint size mason jar and set aside.

Salted Caramel Coconut

    Salted Caramel Coconut Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 3/4 cup toasted sweetened coconut, divided*

    Salted Caramel Coconut Instructions:

• Place cream in the small saucepan over low heat. Once it's hot, you can turn it off. Keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't boil.
• Place the clean mason jar on the stove to stay a little warm while you make the caramel sauce.
• Pour the sugar into the large saucepan set over medium heat.
• It will take a while, like 5-8 minutes before you start seeing the sugar start to melt. When you start seeing melted patches, start gently swirling the pan to evenly distribute the sugar and prevent any burned spots. 
• Continue melting and swirling the sugar until it's a deep amber color. Once it's deep amber, remove from the heat and pour in about half of the cream, which will bubble up violently. 
• Whisk the sugar and cream together, making sure to get any sugar in the corners of the pan. 
• Whisk in the remaining cream, and then the salt. Whisk until smooth, again paying attention to the corners of the pan. 
• Pour the caramel sauce into a heat-proof bowl and allow to cool a bit.
• Reserve about 1 tablespoon of the toasted coconut for the garnish. Then stir the rest of the coconut into the caramel sauce.

    *To toast the coconut, preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Spread coconut evenly on a baking sheet and bake until deep golden brown, about 5-8 minutes Take care not to burn it because it goes from light golden brown to burned pretty quickly. You may need to stir it once if the edges are browning more quickly than the center.

Pavlova

    Pavlova Ingredients: 

• 2 large egg whites (room temperature)
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla paste
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1/2 teaspoon cornstarch

    Pavlova Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• In a small bowl, mix the cream of tartar and cornstarch and set aside for later.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the egg whites on medium high until soft peaks form.
• While the mixer is still on, slowly add half the sugar and beat for 30 seconds. Then slowly add the remaining sugar. Once aded, turn mixer to high speed and beat until glossy stiff peaks form. This will take about 2 minutes.
• Add vanilla and beat for another minute. Continue to beat on high until peaks are very stiff. 
• Fold in the cream of tartar/cornstarch mixture using a silicone/rubber spatula.
• Scoop the mixture onto the parchment-lined pan, and using the back of a spoon, spread it out to make a 6 to 7 inch circle. Make the edge slightly taller than the center portion. 
• Place the pan in the oven and then immediately reduce the heat to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Leave the oven door closed and bake until the pavlova is firm and dry, about 90 minutes. 
• Turn off the oven and allow the pavlovas to cool inside the oven. 
• Move the baked pavlova to a cooling rack and allow to come to room temperature. 

Stabilized Whipped Cream Frosting

    Stabilized Whipped Cream Frosting Ingredients:

• 1/2 tsp unflavored gelatin powder
• 2 tbsp cold water
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 tbsp confectioner's sugar

    Stabilized Whipped Cream Frosting Instructions:

• Sprinkle gelatin over cold water in small bowl to soften. 
• Scald 2 tablespoons of the cream (this means you put the cream in a pan and bring it to a simmer on the stove); pour over gelatin, stirring till dissolved.
• Refrigerate until consistency of unbeaten egg white. (This takes about 10-15 minutes.) Then, with a whisk, beat until smooth. 
• In a stand mixer with a whip attachment, or with a hand beater, whip remaining cream and sugar just until soft peaks form; whip in the smoothed gelatin mixture, stopping to scrape the bowl twice. Whip until stiff peaks start to form, but be careful not to over beat. You will probably only need to whip it another 10-20 seconds before it's done.

Topping Ingredients Not Yet Named

• 35 grams (about 1.3 ounces) dark chocolate

Assembly

• Melt the chocolate by placing in a microwavable dish and microwave on high for about 30 seconds. Stir. If  not melted with one minute of stirring, microwave another 10-15 seconds and then stir until chocolate is completely melted. Set aside.
• Move the cooled pavlova to a serving plate. 
• Carefully spread half of the pecan praline butter (which is about 1/2 cup) over the top of the pavlova, leaving about a 1/2 to 3/4 inch border around the edge.
• Spread the salted caramel coconut on top of the pecan praline butter layer. 
• Spread the stabilized whipped cream on top of the salted caramel coconut.
• Drizzle melted chocolate over the top and then sprinkle with the caramelized pecans and reserved toasted coconut. 
• Refrigerate until ready to serve.
• Cover and refrigerate leftovers.

New York Times' Chocolate Chip Cookies

New York Times' Chocolate Chip Cookies 
without nuts on top
with nuts below

I normally don't follow food trends and believe the cookie everyone says is the BEST really is the BEST, but this one is the exception. These cookies are really the ideal crisp on the edges and chewy in the middle cookie that most people just adore in a chocolate chip cookie. They're even still great the next day, which is something I very rarely say. 

I think I found this recipe on 3 different websites, but am linking We Are All Magic here because it's a sharp looking website. I did add salt to the dough, which at least two of the sites I went to did NOT include. They both did have Maldon Sea Salt as an option to sprinkle on top of the cookies though. Additionally, I browned one stick of the butter because my favorite chef Claire Saffitz does that frequently in her cookie recipes.

I highly recommend you use the best chocolate you can find & afford because it does make a difference. And do take the time and effort to to brown the butter because it also takes these cookies to the next level. Do it.

And enjoy.


New York Times' Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from weareallmagic.com

Ingredients:

• 8.5 ounces cake flour (2 cups minus 2 tablespoons)
• 8.5 ounces bread flour (1 2/3 cup)
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt (Diamond Crystal; if using Morton's use 3/4 teaspoon)
• 2 1/4 cups (10 ounces) butter
• 10 ounces packed light brown sugar (1 1/4 cup)
• 8 ounces white sugar (1 cup plus 2 tablespoons)
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1.25 pounds good quality chocolate chunks or chips (about 3 1/3 cups -- I use Nestlé Dark Chocolate Morsels)
• 1 1/2 cups chopped pecans (toasted), optional

Instructions:

• Place 6 ounces of the butter in a large mixing bowl. Brown 1/2 cup (4 ounces) of the butter by heating it in a heavy bottomed pan over medium low heat, stirring almost continuously. When the butter solids are a deep golden brown, carefully pour the melted browned butter over the other butter in the butter in the mixing bowl, making sure to scrape all of the browned butter into the bowl. Allow to cool to room temperature before using. You can stir the butter to speed this up.

• While the butter cools, sift together the flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.

• Add the brown sugar and white sugar to the butter in the mixing bowl. Beat butter an sugar on high until light and fluffy. 

• Add eggs and vanilla and beat again until light and fluffy again.

• Add the flour, soda, baking powder, and salt mixture and mix on low just until combined. 

• Stir in chocolate chips/chunks to distribute evenly.*

• Line a rimmed baking sheet with wax paper.

• Scoop dough in about 2-3 tablespoon dollops/balls and place on wax paper in prepared pan. Smoosh each ball down into a thick disk. When all dough has been portioned, cover and refrigerate or freeze. If you plan to bake the next day, just refrigerate. If you want to have dough on hand to bake a few at a time, freeze and then transfer frozen dough to zip log freezer bags.

• When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit for at least 30 minutes.

• Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place dough discs on the parchment-lined pan, about 2 inches apart. 

• Bake at 350 degrees F for 13-15 minutes or until edges are starting to turn golden brown.

• Remove from oven and allow to cool on pan for about 5 minutes before moving to a cooling rack to cool completely. 

• Store baked cookies in an airtight container and consume within 2 days for best taste. 

Makes about 3 dozen 4-inch cookies

*Today I divided the dough in half and added half of the chocolate chips to one half of the dough. To the other half of dough, I added a fourth of the chocolate chips and probably 1 1/2 cups of chopped pecans. I like to give people choices.

Weighing the ingredients works best for me.

Browned butter and sugars

The butter and sugars didn't quite get fluffy today.

After the addition of eggs

With nuts and without

Ready to bake

Post-bake

Ready for the freezer

Sourdough Bagels

So many things are going on right now. I'm starting a new job next week and I'm going to be overlapping that with my current job for a few weeks. So, with my last two days off before a 9-day stretch with no day off, I decided to try my hand at sourdough bagels. I was already making sourdough loaves to have on hand in the freezer, and I had some extra ripe starter, so I looked up a recipe and found the perfect recipe on The Perfect Loaf. 

I really recommend looking at the recipe there, as they really do a great job explaining the recipe better than I did here, timeline and all. I tweaked the recipe a bit, so I decided to post it here mainly for myself to replicate in the future.

These bagels take a bit more time than the usual ones, but they are so much more satisfying. Today I made plain, Asiago, and everything bagels--all of them fantastic. 

If you are itching to try out sourdough bagels, give these a go. You will love them.

Sourdough Bagels
     Adapted from The Perfect Loaf

Ingredients:

Levain

• 116 g bread flour
• 65 g water
• 30 g ripe sourdough starter

Bagel Dough

• 850 g bread flour
• 475 g water
• 30 g white sugar
• 30 g molasses or barley malt syrup
• 18 g salt
• 7 g non-diastatic malt powder
• batch of levain (noted above)

Boiling and Topping

• 3-4 quarts of water
• 2 tablespoons rice flour (for boiling)
• toppings, such as shredded Asiago cheese, everything bagel seasoning, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, etc.

Instructions:

The evening before you plan to mix the bagel dough, mix the levain in a wide-mouth pint size mason jar, or in a small bowl. This mixture will be quite stiff, but try to mix it completely. You and take it out of its container and kneed it, if that helps. Cover levain loosely and allow to ferment overnight (about 12 hours) in cozy location.

In the bowl of a sturdy stand mixer, mix about a quarter cup of the water with the sugar, molasses, malt powder, and salt. Add the ripe levain, remaining water, and the flour. Mix on low for about 5-6 minutes or until it looks relatively smooth and elastic. Transfer dough to a bowl or other proofing container. Loosely cover and allow to ferment until puffed, about 3-4 hours.

Note: Do not use bench flour when working with this dough. It should not be sticky enough for that.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Turn the dough out onto a clean counter and divide evenly into 12 pieces (I used my digital scale for this). At this point you can choose to shape the bagels one of two ways: rope or ball. I used the rope method, and today the bagels turned out a bit wonky. Once your bagels are formed place them on the prepared baking sheet.

When all are done, cover the baking sheet with a lid or a large plastic bag, and allow them to proof for 2-4 hours at room temperature. If they don't seem to puff at all, just put them in the fridge anyway after 3-4 hours. Leave in the fridge overnight.

When you're ready to boil and bake, preheat your convection oven to 475 degrees Fahrenheit (or 500 degrees F for non-convection). Line a couple of baking sheets with parchment and set aside.

Fill a wide-mouth pot or dutch oven about half full of water and bring to a boil. Add the rice flour and whisk to incorporate (this helps give the bagels a nice shine).

Boil bagels in batches of 3-4 for about 1 minute, turning each bagel at the half-minute mark. Using a spatula with holes, or other straining kitchen tool, scoop each bagel out, tap bottom of spatula on a kitchen towel to drain a bit, and slide bagel onto the prepared baking sheet. Immediately top with toppings that you want to stick. Continue with remaining bagels, placing about 6-8 bagels on each pan, making sure to not crowd them if you don't want them to touch.

Bake bagels at 475 for about 7 minutes, and then turn oven down to 450 to bake another 6-7 minutes, or until they are deep golden brown. Carefully transfer bagels to a cooling rack to cool at least 10 minutes before enjoying. (Note: I used a baking steel and baking stone and slid the bagels onto the stone/steel on the parchment, and this produced nice crisp exteriors. I you don't have either of those items, baking the bagels on the baking sheets will be just fine.)

Berry Pavlova

I hesitate to post this because I didn't do much to make it my own, but I love it so much that I want to keep track of it here. 

This is the first time I've ever even eaten pavlova, and man, was I pleasantly surprised. It's light, sweet, fresh, crisp, chewy, and actually quite simple to make. Honestly one of the best summer desserts ever.

If you're looking for a delicious pavlova recipe, look no further. Actually, you should go check out Sally's Baking Addiction because she included a video of this recipe on her site. Great work. She's one of my favs.

Berry Pavlova
Adapted from Sally's Baking Addiction

Pavlova Ingredients: 

• 4 large egg whites (room temperature)
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla paste
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch

Topping Ingredients:

• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 3-4 cups fresh berries

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a small bowl, mix the cream of tartar and cornstarch and set aside for later.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the egg whites on medium high until soft peaks form.

While the mixer is still on, slowly add half the sugar and beat for 30 seconds. Then slowly add the remaining sugar. Once aded, turn mixer to high speed and beat until glossy stiff peaks form. This will take about 2 minutes.

Add vanilla and beat for another minute. Continue to beat on high until peaks are very stiff. 

Fold in the cream of tartar/cornstarch mixture using a silicone/rubber spatula.

Scoop half of the mixture onto one side of the parchment-lined pan, and using the back of a spoon, spread it out to make a 6 to 7 inch circle. Make the edge slightly taller than the center portion. Repeat with remaining mixture so you end up with two pavlovas.

Place the pan in the oven and then immediately reduce the heat to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Leave the oven door closed and bake until the pavlova is firm and dry, about 90 minutes. 

Turn off the oven and allow the pavlovas to cool inside the oven. 

Move the baked pavlovas to a cooling rack and allow to come to room temperature. 

Meanwhile, whip the heavy cream with the sugar.

Divide the whipped cream between the two pavlovas and use a spoon to spread the whipped cream over the top op the pavlova, leaving about an inch around the edge uncovered. 

Divide the berries between the two pavlovas and spread/pile over the whipped cream.

Serve immediately. Cover and refrigerate any leftovers. 

Before baking

Baked

Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've got a LOT of chocolate chip cookies on this blog, and right now this one is my favorite. The recipe all started when I wanted to make sugar cookies using my new Heilala Vanilla. Long story short, I had to use some of the dough for chocolate chip cookies, and wow. These were so good. 

Sweet & chewy with layers of caramel and browned butter flavors, with creamy dark chocolate chips. Mmm. A cookie exceptional enough to warrant its own post here. 

Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients 

• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter
• 1/4 cup Crisco
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 tablespoons water
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar 
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¾ teaspoon baking soda
• 2 ½ cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 10 ounce bag of Nestlé Dark Chocolate Morsels
• 1 ½ cups chopped pecans (optional)

Instructions

1. Prepare the browned butter by placing 4 tablespoons of the butter into a small heat-safe mixing bowl.  Place the remaining stick of butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir with a silicone spatula until it's foamy on top and you can see the butter solids turn a deep golden brown color. Pour hot browned butter over the 4 tablespoons of butter in the small bowl. Allow to cool completely before proceeding. 

2. Cream cooled butter, Crisco, egg, vanilla, & water in a medium size bowl. (This may take a little while for the wet ingredients to emulsify and turn creamy.)

3. In a large bowl, stir together with a whisk the sugars, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and flour.

4. Combine the creamed mixture with the dry mixture just until it comes together (do not over mix). Add the chocolate chunks and pecans & mix to incorporate.  Refrigerate dough two hours or over night. (I also scoop all my dough and freeze the dough balls on a wax paper lined cookie sheet.  Once frozen, I transfer them to a gallon zip-top bag.)

5. Preheat oven to 375°F. Scoop dough into balls that are about 2 tablespoons and place them one inch apart on a parchment lined cookie sheet. 

6. Bake 8-11 minutes, or until puffed and light brown around the edges.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies

Butter -- some browned, some not

All of the wet ingredients get mixed together first.

I love seeing all of the flecks of browned butter at this stage.

Sugars, flour, salt, soda, and baking powder get mixed.

Nestlé Dark Chocolate Chips are my current fav.

I almost always scoop and freeze my choc chip cookie dough.

Some of these have nuts and some don't. All delicious though.