How To Make The Perfect Pavlova

So today we're making a pavlova cake which is a meringue based dessert that originated in Australia and I got four egg whites going into the mixer here with half a teaspoon of cream of tartar. I'm just going to whip these egg whites up to soft peaks get this meringue started. So I know about this dessert because my girls love the Australian cartoon Bluey and in one of the episodes they make a pavlova cake. So ever since then she's been asking me for a pavlova cake so here we go we're going to make it really easy to do. Once you start to get soft peaks going to add a cup of sugar and gradually add that into the meringue. It helps if you use superfine sugar this way it incorporates well with the meringue have less of a chance of it deflating. Dump it in all at once you're just going to have a deflated meringue. We want it to be nice and airy so just take your time gradually add in that sugar. So after a couple of minutes with the mixer on high meringue's looking glossy looks like we got stiff peaks here and add in a tablespoon of vanilla to add some flavor just incorporate that in that's perfect that's what we're looking for. So now to get our finished meringue in the shape of a cake I have a silicone mat here that gives me some dimensions on it. I want a nine inch diameter cake and if you don't have this just put some parchment paper on your sheet tray just give it a spray with some non-stick spray and then just grab a plate or something and just give the general shape of the circle. It doesn't have to be perfect nine inch diameter circle we just want it to be somewhat round. So I'm just going to put some of my meringue here forming the base. Once I have the shape and the size I want I'm going to grab the rest of the meringue and just shape that up on top of the base here. Again it does not have to be perfect no matter what you do when you bake this you're going to have some cracks in it and everything I'm going to show you how to fix that and make it look like new. That's the beauty of this pavlova cake it's going to be covered with whipped cream and fresh berries so it's going to look perfect. Again my oven preheated to 300 degrees Fahrenheit 150 Celsius. I'm going to put this in for one hour and then very important after an hour just shut the oven off leave the door closed and let it completely cool for at least an hour and once that's done this is ready to go and like I said you're going to have some cracking but that's okay I'm going to show you how to fix that I'm going to cover it with whipped cream and it's going to look good as new. So to a bowl add one cup heavy whipping cream teaspoon of vanilla quarter cup confectioner's sugar and then we're just going to whip this up until we get whipped cream. So we're going to take this and just cover our pavlova cake and try and make it resemble how they did in the bluey cartoon. I'm going to cover all the imperfections all the cracking and then once that's done I'm going to top it with fresh strawberries. Then we grab a lemon and just zest a little bit over the top of the cake add some freshness and some brightness to the pavlova and finally just finish with a sprig of mint. The outside texture of the cake is nice and crunchy while the inside is soft and fluffy just like a marshmallow. The whipped cream covers all the cracks it gives a nice flavor and texture to the cake and the fresh strawberries with lemon zest bring it all together. I think my girls are going to enjoy this pavlova cake. Don't forget to subscribe for more recipes.