Rain rain go away, come again another year!!
Arrgghhh…there has not been a single rain-free day for in the past 2-3 weeks. Really could do with some sunshine in Scotland.
One of my all time favourite desserts is meringues and pavlova. They are the easiest things to serve when entertaining. They look gorgeous and taste delicious. One of my best friends was visiting a while back and I made these mini pavlovas for dessert.
I have used this recipe many times and have got it from a BBC goodfood dessert recipe book. For a pavlova to serve 6, you will need:
2 tsp cornflour
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp white wine vinegar
5 egg whites
300 gm caster sugar
400 ml lightly whipped cream
200 gm of raspberries
2 tbsp of icing sugar for dusting
1. Preheat the oven to 120°C fan oven. Line a baking tray with a baking sheet.
2. Mix the cornflour, vanilla extract and white wine vinegar and keep aside.
3. Whisk the egg whites with a hand mixer or a whisk till it is frothy. Then start adding caster sugar and add all the sugar in 5-6 parts. Beat the egg white and sugar till it forms soft peaks then add the cornflour mixture and beat till the mixture is smooth and shiny and forms stiff peaks. Do not over beat the mixture.
4. Spoon the mixture onto the baking sheet, swirl the edges with the back of the spoon and make a dip in the center . Since I wanted to make mini pavlovas, I had halved the ingredients and it gave me enough mixture to make 4 small pavlovas.
6. Bake at 120 °C in the preheated oven for an hour. You will be able to see some cracks on the meringue when they are done. Switch the oven off and leave it to cool with the oven door open. If the meringues are going brown, that means your oven temperature is too high. Lower the temperature by about 10 degrees.
7. I usually add about 2-3 tablespoon of sugar to my whipped cream while whipping but it is totally to personal liking as to how sweet you would want your dessert.
8. Spoon 3-4 tablespoon of the whipped cream on the mini pavlova. Decorate with raspberries and dust with icing sugar.
And there you go…
Have fun!
theflourmill 