#312_Mercedez-Pavlova Pie

Mercedez-Pavlova Pie
This is what happens when Pavlova crosses the path of (Brazo ni) Mecedez...

For those who are not familiar with Pavlova and Brazo de Mercedez,
let me give you a little background of each....

Pavlova: from what I understand, this is a very popular dessert in Australia and New Zealand and is the latter's national dessert. It has a meringue for the base which is crusty on the outside and marshmallow-y inside due to the addition of cornstarch in the egg white mixture. It is baked in a low temp oven for almost 1 hour which makes the top of the meringue dry and crispy. The meringue is then filled with sweetened whipped cream and topped with fresh fruits. (See more on Wikipedia, click here).

Brazo de Mercedez: is an all-time Filipino favorite dessert inspired by the Spanish cuisine. "Brazo" meaning arm, Brazo de Mercedez is literally translated as arm of Mercedez... or in other words, an arm of a lady named Mercedez.

This dessert, like the Pavlova, has a meringue base, but it is rolled like a Swiss Roll. However, unlike the Pavlova, the meringue for the Brazo de Mercedez is soft so it can be rolled up. It has a custard filling usually made of egg yolks and condensed milk.

Hybrid
A cross between Pavlova and Brazo de Mercedez.

This is what I came up with after deconstructing both desserts and put their elements together plus my own version of the pastry cream added some pizzazz to the finished product.

Now we have this dessert that is somewhat Pavlova with custard filling instead of whipped cream. It is a flat version of Brazo de Mercedez with fresh fruits and with Coconut Custard Cream Filling, instead of the traditional egg yolk-condensed milk filling. Anyway, here's how I did it....

Meringue:
6 egg whites (room temp)
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar 3/4 cup white sugar

Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until soft peaks form..
Gradually beat in sugar.
Continue beating until stiff and glossy.

For a personal size pie...
1) Line a large baking sheet with a parchment paper.
2) Draw two 9" circles on the parchment paper, then flip the paper so the pencil mark is facing down.
3) Spoon meringue into the circles drawn on parchment paper.

Bake meringue in a pre-heated 300 degrees for about 35 minutes. Let cool.
(I like mine baked longer as I don't want an egg-y tasting meringue)


Coconut Custard Cream Filling:
(from recipe #160, click here)
3/4 cup white sugar
1/3 cup flour
1 cup fresh milk
1 cup coconut
cream 6 egg yolks, slightly beaten

In a sauce pan, combine the sugar and flour and pour in the milk and the coconut cream and stir until the flour is totally dissolved. Turn stove on medium and cook the mixture until it becomes bubbly, stirring constantly, then turn the heat down to medium low and continue to stir. (I didn't have to cook this in a double boiler). Actually this is the only hard part of making this dessert.... constantly stirring the mixture, but in a way, this makes a good work out for the arm!

Take the pan off the heat and, pour in the egg yolks little by little, continuously stirring the mixture. Make sure not to get impatient and pour in the yolks more than a tablespoon at a time, otherwise you'll end up with scrambled eggs.

When all the yolk is added in to the mixture, return the pan to the stove and continue to cook, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens but spreadable like the consistency of mayonnaise.

Spread cream filling on baked meringue.

Top with your favorite fruit combo

Mango Coconut Custard Tart...
http://pinoyamericanrecipes.blogspot.com/2009/07/160incredible-mango-custard-tart.html
another way to top the meringue.

I baked the meringue in a pie pan and filled with the
Coconut Custard Cream Filling mixed with cubed mangoes
then topped with thin slices of mangoes.
Mmmmmm, irresistibly delish!!

ENJOY!!!

#196_Brazo de Mercedes with a Big Twist

Brazo de Mercedes turned into a pie!

I still need to come up with a good name for this dessert. It is kind of a heinz 57 thing where I put everything I love in one pie, i.e. mangoes, custard, coconut cream and meringue.

The idea is taken from Brazo de Mercedes, but instead of rolled, the meringue is baked in a pie tin then filled with custard cream filling, hence a Pie. The cream filling, click here, has coconut cream and home made mango jam, then mounded some shaved fresh mangoes on top. Sorry, I don't have time to write down the recipe right now. I'm making this for our Fundraising Event on Saturday.

For Custard Cream filling recipe, click here.

#160_Incredible Mango Custard Tart

I never had a goofier day than the day I was making this dessert for a Filipino get-together. First of all, my heart was set on making Brazo de Mercedez which is a Filipino dessert made of baked meringue with custard cream filling. Usually the custard is made of condensed milk and egg yolks, but I made mine totally different.

Early in the day, while making the custard filling for the "Brazo.." I found out that I didn't have enough fresh milk called for in the recipe, so I substituted some coconut milk which turned out to be super delicious! This is not an exaggeration and I don't usually like to pat my own back either, but because I'm so elated by the amazing result of this custard cream filling, I can't help but let everybody know how good it turned out.

The addition of the coconut cream in the the cream filling makes the taste so awesome and the amount that I added in was just the right amount. When you bite into it, the taste of coconut is not overpowering the custard, instead it just stays in the background. The blending of all the ingredients is so perfect and out of this world that when I first sampled the filling I thought I died and gone to heaven! I kid you not, it is that good.

I don't want to bore anyone reading this post with what had transpired while I was making the "brazo" dessert, so I will try not to go into details of the dilemmas I encountered along the way but rather give a synopsis.

Making the meringue for Brazo de Mercedes

While making the meringue, I got side-tracked and in short, the meringue didn't turn out, so I quickly grabbed a box of supposedly Puff Pastry from the freezer and set it on the counter to thaw out. I knew this would take about half an hour to thaw them out plus 18 minutes to bake the crust. By now, I had about an hour before I had to leave to go to the party. About 25 minutes later, when I opened the box, and to my dismay, they were not Puff Pastry, but instead they were Fillo Dough! I had used it before as a wrap but not as a pastry shell and I definitely didn't have time to thaw out the Puff Pastry again. So my first impulse was to go to the store and get some ice cream and cookies to take instead, as I had made a commitment to bring desserts. These desserts sure were stressing me out! (BTW, stressed, spelled backwards is desserts). Whenever I'm under any kind of pressure my brain freezes. I knew I had to calm down to get my brain to function and working right. Taking a deep breath didn't do it.

After a few gulps of my favorite soda, I finally calmed down and was able to figure out how I can best use the Fillo Dough for this dessert.

Well, I was 20 minutes late to the party but everybody liked my serendipitous dessert. It even got two thumbs up from the persnickety eaters. Sometimes good things can come out of mishaps!

So now, what I'll do is to put the recipe for the Brazo de Mercedez on the back burner for now, and post the recipe for the Mango Custard Tart.

The only caveat for this recipe is that you might need to figure out what to do with the egg whites if you don't want them to go to waste...that is, if you have time to make use of them. If you do, you probably can make some divinity or meringue cookies,etc. otherwise, aww, just chuck it.

Mango Custard Cream Filling:

3/4 cup white sugar
1/3 cup flour
1 cup fresh milk
1 cup coconut cream
6 egg yolks, slightly beaten
2 ripe mangoes, cubed

Mix the flour and sugar together in a sauce pan

Pour in the milk and the coconut cream and stir until the flour is totally dissolved. Turn stove on medium and cook the mixture until it becomes bubbly, stirring constantly, then turn the heat down to medium low and continue to stir. (I didn't have to cook this in a double boiler). Actually this is the only hard part of making this dessert.... constantly stirring the mixture. In a way, this makes a good work out for the arm!

Take the pan off the heat and, pour in the egg yolks little by little, continuously stirring the mixture. Make sure not to get impatient and pour in the yolks more than a tablespoon at a time, otherwise you'll end up with scrambled eggs.

When all the yolk is added in to the mixture, return the pan to the stove and continue to cook, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens but spreadable like the consistency of mayonnaise.

Add in the cubed mangoes and set aside.
(The filling can be made a day ahead and stored in the fridge).

The Custard Filling with coconut cream, chunks of mangoes
in a flaky and crunchy Filo pastry shell make this dessert so unique
and super delish and yet simple and easy to make.

Preparing the Pastry

There are 2 packages of Fillo dough in a box and each package has 20 sheets. You only need 20 sheets for this recipe.

1) Line a baking pan with a parchment paper.
2) Take a sheet of Fillo dough and brush with melted butter and lay it on the baking pan. Do this with each of the 20 sheets of Fillo dough stacking them on top of each other on the baking pan in a staggering manner. If they tear out don't worry, just overlap them. They don't have to lay flat on the baking pan so it is okay if they wrinkle up. This is not supposed to be a perfect crust.
3) After all the sheets are laid on the baking pan, roll up the edges. (Actually, what I've done because I was in a hurry, I took out more sheets from the other package, maybe about 4-5 sheets at a time, roll them up and twisted them and place them around the edges. It worked really good. If you look closely at the top picture, you can see that the edges have that twisted effect).
4) Bake the pastry in a pre-heated 350 degrees oven for about 20 minutes or until it turns golden brown.
5) Take the pastry out from the oven and set it on a platter and fill it with the Mango Custard Cream Filling.

I'm already so excited thinking about the endless ways I can use the cream filling in different kinds of desserts. In fact I'm already thinking of using it to make a Boston Cream Pie. And how about mango sushi using malagkit? Not a bad idea, aye?

ENJOY!!!

UPDATE: 8-6-09


This is an update after a friend of mine made this recipe using the red/green kind of mangoes. She said the custard cream filling tasted so good but the mangoes tasted so bland.
Please, by all means, use this variety of mangoes...they can be found in most Oriental stores and at Costco. They are called Manila mangoes. Unfortunately, just like some other fruits they have their season.