I see from the comments on last week's Pavlova that the lack of soft fruit has caused the purists to raise an eyebrow or two! The case for the defence is that mine was a Scottish version, not claiming to be authentic, and is ideal when soft fruit is not in season. Further, it must taste better, surely, than the New Zealand creation which uses wine gums (!) for decoration (you can see it here).
I seem to be jinxed where that dessert is concerned. I mentioned having dropped one on the way to serving it at a dinner party. I made two for last week's Books and Cakes post: I must have spread the meringue too thinly because the first one ended up far too flat to use; the second one cracked in two when I was peeling off the baking paper (the repair was hidden by the topping, of course), and then when I was trying to photograph the finished Pavlova alongside the book, "Voss" toppled over and fell into it. No harm was done, I was able to wipe the book clean and artfully re-swirl the cream and lemon curd mixture - and no-one was any the wiser (as Laurel and Hardy would have said)!
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Edited to add: I love Helen's comment (see below) !
To console you, luv, I'll tell ya that most Aussie women, when making a pav, get one from the local Woolies (the meringue) and just whip up cream and chop up the fruit. That's why leaving out the fruit is so horrifying. The effort is all in the cream and the fruit, and that's all. It's easy. Who wants to be baking in the boiling heat? Most fashionable women avoid the pav- it's a bit old Aussie, like barbies and beer. The fashionable types go for other more exotic things. You'd be more the type to not do a pav- anyone who reads Patrick White would chose somethin a bit more sophisticated, if ya get what I mean, luv. Those types all read what you read, like Nigella and all that posh stuff. Pavs are average and a bit, well, like beer and barbies. Maybe you could ask Dame Edna about that, she'd have a thing or 2 to say....
Posted by: Helen | 21 May 2008 at 06:49 AM