Recently the age old question of who made the first pavlova seemed to be finally laid to rest when the Oxford dictionary made the ruling that it was indeed New Zealand, with it appearing in a book in 1927 (whoop whoop).
There are so many dodgy pavlova recipes out there. Often they are little more than a meringue recipe that has been spread out. A meringue is made simply with egg whites and sugar whereas pavlova includes vinegar and cornflour. A good pavlova should have a beautiful crisp outer shell with a light and fluffy centre.
As a child I always wanted the crispy shell and didn’t like the soft centre but as I have gotten older I have come to love both equally.
This time of year has me thinking a lot about my Dad as it’s both around his birthday and anniversary of when he passed away. With that weighing heavily on my mind, I have thought about recipes that represent family and family coming together. Pavlova is definitely one of those recipes in New Zealand, so it made sense to give the recipe on page 210 a try.
The recipe is quite a standard one, however the measurements are slightly different to what I am used to. The recipe states vinegar, and just so you know I am used to recipes with malt vinegar in them so chose malt for this recipe. 
The recipe makes a smaller pavlova than I am used to but is a good size for a small family.
The cooking time for this pav did however seem to be a little off. As you know I follow the recipes to the letter so made sure the size circle I made was the size stated. This made quite a tall pav and when cooked for 45 minutes the pav was not firm on the outside as I would have expected, so I broke my own rule and gave it ten minutes more. In reality it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. The pav once cooled did look really good. The finished product was not overly sweet and very fluffy inside, although it did collapse slightly on cooling.
The only problem was it was really really fluffy and actually quite wet. The pavlova would not have been happy sitting 
for long once creamed, in fact before the last slice was served it was swimming in goo. Not good.
This recipe isn’t terrible and I think cooking it a bit longer may fix the goo issue but here you can find the recipe I usually use for my pavlovas with great success. Perhaps you can try both. I would be interested to hear your thoughts 🙂
After making the pavs I found myself in a downward spiral of sad thinking about and missing Dad and in desperate need of some comfort. I am also going to post a recipe here for a recipe I developed that I call after dinner mint chocolate mousse. Its perfect when you just need something to cheer you up. My dad would have loved it 🙂
Until next time. Happy cooking! 🙂