Ah, pavlova! For a long time I have loved you, O Dessert from Down Under. I have drooled over your pillowy, marshmallowy softness under the cloak of golden, crunchy meringue. I have marvelled at the lofty heights that a simple marriage of eggwhites and sugar can reach. I have loved the way the kiwi or strawberries piled on top leavened the sweetness with their acidity. And most of all, I have gorged myself silly on spoonful after spoonful of these contrasting flavours and textures.
When done right a pavlova is sheer delight. Done wrong (and I've had some pretty miserable specimens in restaurants) it's a sheer waste of an ingenious idea. I've had pavlovas that tasted of absolutely nothing, the insult to the tastebuds compounded by the characterless strawberries piled on top and the chemical tasting whipped cream. And I've had absolutely mesmerising concotions that had me clapping in delight, even in the poshest restaurants (yes, I'm like that).
So all that remained after years of invariably ordering pavlova (or banoffee pie, another obsession, but that's a tale for another day) in restaurants is....to make it myself.
That's why I embarked on a marathon of cooking today that resulted in a very rustic pavlova, a bit lopsided like Jim "Rubberface" Carrey's manic grin (we were watching Batman and the Riddler as I was making this dessert), but nonetheless light and delicious.
There's plenty of really reliable recipes around, including Delia Smith's foolproof and home cook-tested recipe that I would advise YOU to try. But this post here is a tale of how I did my rustic version, mucking about in my kitchen and improvising with what I had on hand.
Summer pavlova with raspberries
I whisked together 1 cup superfine granulated sugar and 1 tablespoon tapioca in a small bowl. Most professional recipes advise you to use cornstarch but tapioca flour is all I had and the pavlova didn’t seem to be harmed by it.
Then I beat 3 large eggwhites with a pinch of salt using an electric mixer at medium speed until soft peaks formed. Delia’s tip is to beat until the meringue doesn’t fall out of the bowl if you invert it. But I’m not so radical.
At this point I turned the oven on and dialed up 300 F. The rack should be in the middle. The recipes tell you to preheat at the beginning of instructions but honestly I don’t work that fast and don’t want to waste the heat.
Then, I added 3T water to the eggwhite mixture and beat it again until the soft peaks returned.
Next step was to beat in the sugar mixture 1T at a time, using medium-high speed. After all sugar had been added, I beat for a minute more. Next I added 1 teaspoon lemon juice (what I had on hand; standard ingredient is white vinegar or apple cider vinegar) and beat at high speed for about 7 minutes, until the meringue turned glossy, with stiff peaks.
Then I dolloped the meringue on my Silpat to make a circle around 8 inches in diameter with the edges slightly higher than the centre – this was to create a crater to hold the whipped cream and fruit I planned to pile on. (I didn’t have baking parchment so I used a baking sheet and layered Silpat on top).
I popped the whole thing in the oven and baked it about 1 hour and a half until the meringue developed a crust. After that I turned off the heat and let the meringue cool in the oven for an hour. It's important for the meringue to dry completely.
Next head-scratcher was the topping. I had no whipped cream. Besides, that stuff is bad for you ;-) So I lightly beat together about a cup of plain yogurt with 2T of sugar, and then piled on the raspberries. I had set out two cups of the razzies to defrost an hour earlier, but what with H and me snacking on a few berries while they were thawing, there was just a cupful left! Baaaaaaaaaaaad.
As it baked the pavlova developed a few major cracks that reminded me of volcano movies, you know the ones where the ground develops major splits, only these were horizontal. But the tangy creaminess of the yogurt and the beautiful acidity of the raspberries made the whole lovely messy pile so scrumptious, hubby and I had seconds and I had thirds!
Below is the whole lava-esque creation before we dug in:
Bon appetit!
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