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!