Well, I tried to make a pavlova for dinner with friends on Saturday night but my meringue didn’t quite turn out right (I think I didn’t beat it for long enough before adding the sugar).

Although delicious, toasted crisp on the outside and chewy in the middle, it didn’t look good - they really can blow up alarmingly in the oven - so I had to form a quick plan b.

And, inspired by the pudding Eaton Mess, I decided to deconstruct my pavlova, crumbling the unsightly meringue and mixing with the cream and raspberries before my guests saw it. Of course, what actually happened was we had a bit of wine and a bit of a laugh about the meringue growths, it’s best not to get too precious about food presentation, and then thoroughly enjoyed the pudding. Mmmm pavlova.

Ingredients

For the Meringue
(from Nigel Slater’s Appetite - quantities slightly modified and cooked as individual nests)

4 medium / 3 large organic egg whites
180g sugar
1 teaspoon cornflower

For the topping
200ml (big carton) whipping cream
2 small punnets raspberries (or 8 passion fruits if they are in season)

Serves 4-5

1 Heat the oven to 160 C, line a baking tray with parchment (non stick) baking paper, measure out the sugar
2 Separate the eggs - careful not to add even a smidgen of yolk or the whites won’t thicken
3 Whisk the whites until they are stiff and shiny - I did this in the magimix
4 Add the sugar in two batches, whisk until really thick and glossy
5 fold in cornflower by hand and then dollop 4/5 mounds onto baking paper (space them well apart) building them up into nests by adding to the edges - or you can make one big one
6 Put in oven for 1 hour, then turn off oven and leave meringues in to cool for 1 further hour
7 Meanwhile you can be whipping the cream into thick clouds and sieving about a quarter of the raspberries with a teaspoon of sugar to make a coulis (just push through the sieve, instant sauce!)
8 When you are ready to eat, present either pre-assembled (meringue, cream, raspberries, sauce), or in separate bowls for guests to make as the please, or make a(n Eaton) mess and serve with a smile!

Tags: eaton mess, passion fruit, pavlova, pudding, raspberry

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 at 11:36 am by urban foodie and is filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.