Granny knows best when it comes to pav

Granny knows best when it comes to pav

West-Auckland grandmother Pauline Senior is Auckland’s pavlova champion.

Mrs Senior from Oratia is the winner of the adult category in the annual Nosh Food Market Pavlova Competition at the company’s Mt Eden Store.

Other Auckland winners are Amy Castle of Howick whose pavlova takes out the Alternate Category, a new addition to the competition, and Fleur Chaplaw (9) from Parnell who won the Children’s Category.

Mrs Senior’s pavlova decorated with rose petals, berries, pistachios, Turkish delight with Chantilly cream and meringues made into roses was judged best of the Mt Eden entries. She receives a year’s supply of Coulston Hill Free Range eggs and a $50 Nosh Dosh voucher.

The winning pav is a variation on a recipe that Mrs Senior has been cooking up since the 1970s.

“It’s been in my old recipe file for many years but when my daughter encouraged me to enter the competition I thought I’d better tweak it up a bit if I wanted to do well,” she says. “It was fun thinking about how I could conjure up something different for the decoration.”

Mrs Senior prides herself on being a perfectionist cook so she took two days to get her ingredients together and to make the decorations.

“I’m a dressmaker so I like to do things with flair but also have everything just right. I made the Turkish delight and sugar coated the rose petals a couple of days early and then got up at six o’clock on the morning of the delivery day to complete the pavlova. You don’t want it to get soggy do you?”

Asked what she is going to spend her prize Nosh vouchers on Mrs Senior said simply, “Myself”.

“I’ve never entered a cooking competition before – it’s really exciting.”

Nosh director Clinton Beuvink says the competition has been an outstanding success.

“Pavlova is just one of those summer dishes we have come to associate with the festive season and every year the wonderful entries simply never cease to amaze and delight.”

The fourth annual pavlova competition has also been held at Nosh Food Market stores in Constellation Drive, Hamilton and Mt Maunganui.

More than 100 people entered the competition in the four centres.

ends

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