Pavlova.

Yesterday was mother's day, I made a pavlova.

I had to do the whole thing by hand with a tiny, partially broken whisk, but is was worth it - I love the way the slimy yellow-tinged egg whites gradually become thick, white and lustrous with only the addition of sugar and a bit of elbow grease (mmm, delicious).

I don't care what they say - size DOES matter. At least when it comes to whisks.

It took about 45 minutes but after I put on some banging choons and chatted to people coming in and out of the kitchen, I hardly noticed the work. Plus, it kinda sorta counts as some form of exercise right? Ok, maybe eating it totally negated the three calories I burnt making the thing but whatever.



The recipe is easy, it's just two ounces of sugar to each large egg white. Add a pinch of cornflour and a splash of vinegar (or lemon juice) and it becomes a pavlova. Bake in a low oven for around an hour and 20 minutes and leave to cool. Top with whipped cream and whatever fruit you have lying about - I used frozen raspberries.



I planned to make some sort of raspberry sauce with hints of lime and ginger, but unfortuently there was prosecco to be drunk and bubbly stuff gets me tipsy pretty quickly. This was evident when it came to decorating the thing - the cream and raspberries were dumped unceremoniously on top and I accidentally broke the base a little. Oops.

What happens when you drunkenly attempt to decorate a pavlova.

So taste wise how was it? Well, honestly, there's only so much you can say about it. Sweet meringue (shatteringly crisp outside, marshmallow soft inside), cool cream, sharp raspberries. Simple but pretty awesome.
But my favourite part of the whole thing was definitely getting lots of gratuitous shots of the silky gleaming mixture:

Oh, and yes, I did do the bowl-over-the-head test. I used my sister for that.