A Pavlova for Tartelette

Some of you may know that I was asked to do a guest post for Tartelette.    You know, The Tartelette?

Yes.  I know.

Of course I had a few moments of the puffy ego syndrome after an initial self-indulgent happy dance before I snapped out of it and began to fret about what to make.  Ohhhhhh, the sweet agony of making this particular decision.  I’m a meat and veggie type of person, comfortable with trying a bit of this and a bit of that.  I have a fondness for salad and greens, and a little addiction for the perfect muffin.  But making something special that would look like it belonged up front and center on Tartelette’s site?

Well.  You have no idea the fuss I made over this.  You’d have thought the Queen of England was coming to dinner.  Seriously.  But I had so much fun.  Far more fun than I’d have had if I’d needed to choose a little black dress for an event as swanky as that.

I don’t do little black dresses.  Ever.

But I learned quite a bit making A Pavola for Tartelette — or Helen, who is quite the amazing person if you’re fortunate enough to know her.

I hope you take some time to visit her, read my post,  and decide what you think of my Pavlova — definitely more of a tutu than a little black dress if you ask me.

And no, I don’t do tutus, either.  It just might conjure images of dancing hippos instead of ballerinas.

Because I didn’t include my usual notes with the recipe posted at Tartelette, I thought I’d add them here:

• This is surprisingly an easy recipe to make.  Truly!
• I wanted to make smaller Pavlovas, but decided that due to Murphy’s Law, I’d stick to the recipe — sort of.
• An approximate 7″ diameter circle is called for, and honestly I had a huge amount of meringue, so surely I wasn’t expected to mound all of it in that seeemingly too small circle.
• I  made an additional smaller square about 4 ” wide.  I positioned them both on the same sheet thinking there wouldn’t be that much spread.
• Well, I was wrong.  Wrong enough that the two did co-mingle in the oven.
• Speaking of the oven, I did not use convection and baked the pavlovas for the required time.  I did not open the oven during baking and did make sure to prop the oven door open as required for an entire hour.
• Unfortunately, the parchment stuck to the bottom of both meringues, so I had to lift the entire piece of parchment off the baking sheet and sort of slide it onto the counter where I cut around the base of it.
• Any cracking done to either meringue had already been done in the oven during the cool down period.
• I decided to mix all the whipped cream with the curd to lighten it in texture as much as flavor.  The fruit combination I chose is tart, so I wanted something a bit more creamy to go with it.  I think this was a great decision because the flavor was perfect!
• I had a huge amount of the curd as well, so was able to mound it in both meringues, and have some additional for a bowl with fruit.
• I was hugely surprised that this kept as well as it did.  No, I wouldn’t have normally done this, but it was quite late by the time I was finished and so put the entire thing in the fridge.  It was still beautiful the next day!
• To truly make this ahead, I’d keep all components separate, and at the last minute, spoon on the lemon cream, load with fruit and serve.
• I’d say if you’re someone who likes an adventure, then this one’s for you.  It was for me!

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Tagged as: cream, curd, meringue