Posted By Laura in Family Recipes, Featured | 5 comments

This Easy Pavlova Recipe, it really is the most amazing thing. It’s funny, I didn’t make pavlova for years – purely because I thought it was really hard and complicated. Meringue is tricky, right?
Not so!
It’s dead easy.
And universally popular – everyone always comes back for seconds, there really won’t be any leftovers.

This Easy Pavlova Recipe Serves a big family.

This Easy Pavlova Recipe is a big one which I make for family gatherings and dinners for 8: halve the recipe for smaller groups, as leftovers go soft by the next day (nothing wrong with a leftover portion for an evening treat though…)

How long it will take:

20 minutes prep,
1hr baking,
10 minutes construction

What You Need:

• For the Meringue:
• 4 medium egg whites
• 225g (8oz) caster sugar (I’ve used granulated before with no bad effects)
• 5ml (1tsp) Cornflour
• 2.5ml (1/2 tsp) White Wine Vinegar (I use any wine vinegar in the cupboard, red or white)
• 2.5ml (1/2 tsp) vanilla essence

• Simple Topping:
• Your choice of soft fruit – we LOVE raspberries and blueberries. But straight strawberries are good, as is a tropical topping with kiwi, banana and mango. The choice is yours: two punnets of soft fruit is needed, but really just pile on what you fancy as thick (or not) as you like it.
• 600ml Double Cream

Easy Pavlova Recipe What you do

1. Preheat the oven to 150ºC / 140ºC fan / 300ºF / GM 2.
2. Line a large baking sheet with baking parchment, and draw round a dinner plate (20cm-ish circle) in the centre of the paper. Turn the paper over so the marking is underneath and won’t transfer to the meringue! (NB – I have used foil in a baking-paper-less crisis, and it worked just fine)
3. Place the egg whites in a clean, grease-free bowl and use an electric whisk (a stand mixer makes this even easier), whicking them until stiff and dry.
4. Add the sugar, a spoon at a time, whisking all the while until the mixture is smooth, glossy and holds stiff peaks.
5. Gently fold in the cornflour, vinegar and vanilla with a large metal spoon. Just be gentle – don’t knock all the air back out.
6. Spoon the mixture onto the parchment. With the back of the metal spoon, spread it to just within the circle, making decorative swirls, leaving a shallow dip in the centre.
7. Bake for 1hr until the meringue base and sides are crisp but not browned. Leave to cool on a cake rack – cracking is totally normal as it cools.
8. Whilst it is cooking prep your topping; for the simple version, just whip your cream until it is gently peaking, and chop any large fruit into bite size pieces.
9. Place the cooled pavlova on a large serving plate, spoon some cream on and smooth a layer across the centre.
10. Scatter a few handfuls of your fruit on the bottom cream layer.
11. Spoon the rest of the cream into the centre, spreading thickly and evenly almost to the edge
12. Arrange the rest of your fruits on top (I find topping it a fab job for small helpers), decorate with a few mint leaves and a sieved shake of icing sugar if you’re feeling fancy.
13. Nom nom nom.

Easy Pavlova Recipe Alternative Special Topping:
Choice of soft fruit as before
25g (1oz) caster sugar
6 sprigs fresh mint
2 cinnamon sticks, halved
juice from 1 orange
450ml (16fl oz) Double Cream
150ml (5fl oz) Greek Yogurt

• For the Special Topping – Remove all stalks from fruit, halve/quarter any strawberries and place all in a large bowl together.
• Mix in the sugar, 3 mint sprigs, cinnamon sticks and orange juice
• Leave to stand for 2 hrs to infuse.
• Just before eating, whisk the cream until soft peaks form. Fold in the yogurt, and the mixture will thicken into stiff peaks.
• Add cream to the pavlova base as usual
• Drain the fruits (reserve the juice in a serving jug), discarding the mint leaves and cinnamon sticks.
• Spoon the fruit mixture over the cream mix
• As you serve, spoon a little juice over the fruit, and sprinkle with the remaining mint leaves.
• Serve with the reserved fruit juice.

Pavlova not what you’re looking for?

Try this recipe for an amazing Chocolate Courgette Cake, or perhaps go retro with a school dinner’s cornflake tart.

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