My Easy Peasy Pavlova Recipe

Last Sunday I baked and served one of my retro favs for a trip to the in-laws - a pavlova laden with lashings of fresh Irish cream and a pretty odd but lovely array of fresh fruit! There was a decent amount of liking and commenting over on Facebook and Instagram so to all my appreciated likers, here is my very simple, straightforward recipe for this delicious sweet treat, which is naturally gluten-free too!

This pavlova will serve about 6 to 8 portions (*ahem* but we shared it among four adults *cough*)

Ingredients:

• 4 fresh eggs (whites only) and free-range, if at all possible
• 100 g icing sugar, sieved*
• 125 g caster sugar*
• 1 tsp. cornflour
• 250 ml whipped fresh cream
• Your choice of fruits; berries, grapes and kiwis work well

*If icing sugar is unavailable, you can certainly use 225 g of simply caster sugar. The icing sugar helps to ensure you get that nice chewy inner consistency, but the cornflour will help that along too.

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 150 degrees C/300 F/gas mark 2.
2. Line a flat baking tray with greaseproof paper.
3. Whisk the egg whites with a hand-held whisk or mixer, until reasonably stiff.
4. Begin to add in the two sugars, bit by bit, whisking on a high speed. This will take a little while and you are aiming for the mixture to be brilliant white colour and the consistency to be of stiff peaks when the whisk is lifted out. The over your head test works too, if you're feeling plucky.

   

   That stiff peaks kind of consistency to the meringue

5. Add in the cornflour and fold it through the mixture gently.
6. Scrape all the meringue mixture out onto the baking sheet in a circular form, smoothing the centre down into a little hollow and keeping the sides a little higher.
7. Bake in the oven for one hour, turn off the oven and allow the meringue to rest inside the oven as it cools, for as long as you can but for at least another hour and until fully back to room temperature.
8. To assemble, dollop your cream into the hollowed centre part and arrange your chopped or whole fruits on top. There you have it; pavlova!

   

   My easy peasy pavlova