Mná Top Chef

My Favourite Pavlova

Tested and Enjoyed by : Anne Marie Mullen Puccetti

Ingredients

4 egg whites
250 g of sugar
2 tsp. of maizena
1 pinch of salt
40 cl full liquid cream
1 vanilla bean
60 g of icing sugarFruit of your choice
white chocolate with a drop of nutral oil for the “chablonage”
you can also add an “insert” , in this one I put a Passion fruit insert

Instructions

Beat the egg whites with the salt, once they start to be firm, add the sugar and continue.
Then add the maizena and whisk for another 30 seconds.
Spread the meringue in the shape of small nests on a sheet of baking paper on a baking tray
Cook the meringues for 1 hour: put in the oven at 150°C and lower to 120°C from the beginning of cooking.
Prepare the fruit (rinse, cut etc.)
Whisk the very cold cream with the sugar and the seeds of the vanilla pod.
Once the meringues are cooked, take them out of the oven and let them cool on a rack
Serve the Pavlova by putting whipped cream on the meringues, and red fruit :)

If you can, with a piping bag you can do a pretty crown shape for the meringue.
When it has cooled down you can cover the base with the melted choclate mixed vigoursly with the oil to keep it from getting humid
Prepare the whole cake as late as possible, place the insert if you do it on top of the meringue, decorate it with the cream, on mine I did the same piping as for the meringue, load it with the fruit as the more the better and finish with a few chopped, roasted buts of any sort

Tips

The base can be very fragile so let it go perfectly cold before moving, try to manipulate a minimum but afterall a Pavlova does not need to be perfect and even if it breaks who cares, the taste is wht is important!! My lovely mum always mad Pavlova but never used a piping bag and it was always just PERFECT!!