Mini Pavlovas

Annabella recently informed me in shock that she was in need of a pavlova recipe, and her first port of call in her online search was my blog! (Brava!)… She called me indignantly asking why on earth didn’t I have my pavlova recipe posted here!  She did have a good point, and although I will eventually post it, after the Pavlova Roulade, I thought that mini pavlovas weren’t a bad alternative. I’ll actually be making quite a lot of these in a couple of weeks, so today I thought I’d test a recipe, which  then obviously was followed by a taste for ‘quality control’ purposes only….

Mini Pavlovas

• 4 egg whites
• 250g caster sugar
• 2 teaspoons cornflour
• 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
• 250g mascarpone or freshly whipped cream
• Fruit of choice for topping although I do believe passionfruit is obligatory!

1. Preheat oven to 120°C.
2. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
3. Prepare a piping bag with nozzle of choice. (or simply cut the end off, and pipe without a nozzle.) Ensure your electric mixer bowl is clean and dry.
4. Whisk the egg whites with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Gradually add  sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, whisking constantly for 10 minutes until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is stiff and glossy. Fold in the cornflour and vinegar.
5. Spoon into the piping bag and pipe equal sized portions onto the baking tray. Using the back of a spoon, smooth the middle of each meringue, so they resemble little nests.
6. Bake for 1 hour. Turn off oven and leaving pavlovas inside, and the oven door slightly ajar for a couple of hours or until meringue shells have cooled completely.
7. To assemble the pavlovas, spoon mascarpone or whipped cream onto the meringues and top with fruit.  I used raspberries, blueberries, kiwi fruit, strawberries and then drizzled passionfruit over the top.

Note:  the amount you make depends on the size of the meringues you pipe.  To try and ensure they are all relatively the same size, I traced circles using a cookie cutter onto the baking paper with a pencil. (Then turn paper over before piping meringue).