Mini Pavlovas with Yogurt Cream and Mixed Fruit

My trek to cooking club didn’t pan out last night. My sweet little red-headed baby has been coming down with a cold and yesterday it finally hit full force. She was coughing so hard she threw up on me three times. Poor thing. I know how miserable she is because she caught that cold from me. (I think my husband was glad I stayed home.)

So I still have a bunch of the mini pavlovas hanging around. We dug into them last night and then again this morning for breakfast. There’s still more!

I’ve always had this apprehension regarding pavlova. It looks strange, for one thing. And my first experience with meringue when I was a child was not a good one. Picture this: burnt, foamy (like soap) meringue on top of store bought pie.

My whole life experience (up until a few years ago) with meringue was based on that very pie.

The apprehension has been, of course, misguided. I actually really do like meringue. I just had never had good meringue before. Now I’m on a mission to perfect my hand at making meringue, because really, when you’ve have a good one, it can be addicting.

The mini pavlovas turned out pretty darn good for a first-timer. I didn’t beat the egg whites quite long enough before adding the sugar, so they didn’t get thick enough and mound up. But, from all I know from reading about pavlovas, they turned out just right.

The outside is hard and dry–it sort of melts on your tongue. The inside is gooey and marshmallowy. They are unbelievably sweet. The yogurt cream and fresh fruit was the perfect accompaniment in flavor and texture.

I started taking bites out of the one in the picture (for the picture above) and I couldn’t stop myself. My little girl couldn’t leave it alone either. Her favorite part was the fruit, of course.

I don’t know if this recipe is the best one–I’ll have to try others and see. But it was just fine for my purposes. You can see the recipe here.

For my fruit–

3 kiwis, cut into 1/4″ dice
16 oz. strawberries, cut into 1/4″ dice
1 pint blackberries
1/4 cup homemade freezer jam (1/4 cup sugar would have been better)

Toss everything together in a bowl and spoon on top of the yogurt cream and pavlovas.
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Update: Tartelette has a guest blogger today who also posted about pavlova. Click here to read.

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11 Comments

  1. Yum, loved your description of the pavlova. I have MORE egg whites and am going to give it a try! The fruit part would be my Babygirls fave part too. I have to watch her. She’s eaten the berries for my desserts before.

    Hope the baby is feeling better!
    Happy Easter, Lindsey!
    ~ingrid

  2. They turned out perfect!!
    Thanks for always coming by with a sweet word while I am completely underwater with blog reciprocity :(
    Hope your baby girl is feeling better now!

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