Strawberry pavlova
I’ve been wanting to make a pavlova for quite a long time now, but similar to macarons; it’s one of those things that are so daunting that I don’t start for fear of not being able to complete it in a proper way. But after having seen a recipe for a strawberry pavlova in the Dutch version of Good Food (which is a seasonal release only) I just had to give it a go.
Making the meringue was not difficult although I worried that the batter wasn’t as it was supposed to be. I had only ever made meringue before and that was a very very fast one in the microwave. One of the things about the microwave is that it is either too fast or too short and anything else was either burned or too flat. So I was quite pleased to find out that this looked much better coming out of the oven. Ok, it takes a rather long time to cook as it needed to be on a low temperature, but still I was very pleased with how it came out.
I had made one large one and wanted to do two mini pavlova’s in order to make a nice photo that I could use for the review that Steve Adams is giving on our photos in the Food Photography Club at Flickr, but as it turned out the one layer pavlova turned out better then the two smaller ones. I overdid it with adding the whipped cream so it just looks like one big blob as you can here…
A very tasty blob, but nevertheless not the best photo and certainly not the one I had intended to make…:( Unfortunately I will not have time to do much other foodphotos this week, so it will have to be the above photo of the pavlova. I am a little anxious about it, but that’s as good as it is gonna get!!
If you want to make this pavlova make sure you have an empty stomach when eating it, as it is very rich, but oooo so lovely!
Strawbery pavlova
Ingredients
- For the merinque
- 175 gr peeled almonds roasted
- 225 gr light brown sugar
- 225 gr raw sugar
- 6 eggwhites
- 1 tablespoon cornflour
- 2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
- For the rest:
- 1 kilo strawberries halved
- 50 gr icing sugar plus some extra to sprinkle
- 5 dl double cream
- 1. Preheat the oven (140°C electrical/120°C hot air) and prepare two baking trays with baking paper.
- Chop about 2/3 of the almonds in the magimix (don't make them into powder). Chop the remaining almonds with a knife.
- 2. Stir the two sugars together. Whisk the eggwhites with an electric handmixer stiff, add the sugar in three parts and mix after each portion of sugar to make sure it is firm again. Add the cornmeal and the white winevinegar and keep stirring untill you feel a noticeable resistance while using the mixer (this can take up to 5 minutes)
- 3. Spoon the chopped and the largest part of the roughly chopped almonds through the mixture. Divide the batter in circles of about 20 cm each on the baking trays and cover with the remaining almonds. Bake for 60 minutes in the preheated oven, turn the oven off and leave the meringues for at least another 60 minutes in the oven to cool. Leave the door closed during the cooling. (you can keep the meringue for maximum one day in an airtight container or cover in various layers of foil and freeze for max. 1 month.
- 4. Puree 600 gr of the strawberries for the strawberrysauce, in a magimix or blender. Mix it with two tablespoons of the icing sugar.
- Whip the cream with the remaining icing sugar to soft peaks. Spoon 2/3 of the strawberry sauce through the cream. For a marmereffect don't mix it completely.
- 5. Shortly before serving put the cream on top of the meringue. Put the two meringue on top of each other and top with the remaining strawberries. Cover with icing sugar and serve the remaining strawberry sauce separately.
Disclaimer
The nutritional values above are calculated per portion. The details are based on standard nutritional tables and do not constitute a professional nutritional advice.
