STRAWBERRY AND LEMON PAVLOVA

 So the heatwave is still going strong and me and my family decided to throw a BBQ. Now my family have never really gone along with my dream of opening my own cafe and they don't really think im a good baker, so I needed to come up with something that would make them change their mind. Summer reminds me of Pavlova, it's sweet and creamy and everyone loves meringue, I had some lemons going spare so decided to add a lemon cream which was really refreshing and the strawberries and chocolate really compliment it. I don't think I have ever seen my family clear their plates so quick!

Takes 80 minutes to bake

INGREDIENTS 

Pavlova

2tsp cornflour

1tsp vinegar

6 egg whites (weighed)

pinch of salt

Casting sugar (double the weight of egg whites)

Cream

Tub of double cream

1 lemon for zest and half juice

Casting sugar

Decoration

Strawberries

Chocolate

METHOD

1. Preheat your oven to gas mark 4 (180C/350F). Ensure that your eggs are at room temperature.

  

  2.  Draw around a cake tin onto baking paper to give you an outline to shape your meringue. Make sure you turn the paper over before placing your meringue mix on so that the ink doesn't transfer onto your meringue.

3. Seperate your eggs, you can keep your yolks in the fridge if you want and use them for something else. Now weigh your egg whites and measure out exactly double in casting sugar. Add your salt to the egg whites.

4. Whisk your egg whites until they form lovely stiff peeks, it should look something like this.

 

5. Slowly add one spoon at a time of your casting sugar, making sure it is well blended and glossy otherwise your sugar will melt when cooking and leave you with a syrup.

 6. Now add your cornflour and vinegar, again ensure it is all mixed in. Your mixture should now be lovely and thick.

7. Transfer your meringue to your baking paper and shape to fit in your circle. Bake for 5 minutes on gas mark 4 and then turn it down to gas mark 1/4 (120C/250F) for 75 minutes.

 8. Remove when the meringue is hard on the outside and gooey on the inside. Unfortunately mine cracked however it has no effect on the taste and it was going to be covered in cream so didn't matter. Leave to cool and move onto your cream.

 9. Whisk together cream, the zest of one lemon and half a lemons juice until lovely and thick, add casting sugar for sweetness. Melt some chocolate and using a spoon drizzle over some baking paper into the shape you want, place in the fridge for a minute until hard and easy to remove. Now spread the cream over your meringue, and arrange your halved strawberries and the chocolate.

 

And there we have it, a simple and yummy strawberry and lemon pavlova, it was so tasty and easy to prepare. Perfect for a summers day, give it ago, if my fussy family ate it all and loved it, then i'm sure you will to. Please comment and let me know what you think.