Light Meringue cake with fruits
Pavlova is a meringue cake with a crunchy exterior and a soft interior, which is usually topped with whipped cream and berries or some fresh fruits. It is soft, light and very delicisous. Pavlova is named after the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, and got this name after her 1920s tour through Australia. Still, it is unclear where the dessert itself originated from: some argue it comes from New Zealand, others say it is Australin and some even say that it comes from the United States. It is a dessert most identified with the summer time, but is eaten all year round in many Australian and New Zealand homes and has become as well very popular in Europe.
I had wanted to make this cake for a long time, but somehow I was afraid of it being too hard. Now that we have moved homes, I have a new oven and it seems that together “we” can master this elegant and fragile cake very well. I hope that you will enjoy my recipe.
Pavlova with figs
Yield: 5-6 portions
Ingredients:
Meringue
- 5 egg-whites
- 270g powder (caster) sugar (minimum 250g of sugar)
- 1 table spoon white vinegar
- 1 table spoon maizena
- 1 tea spoon vanilla extract
Topping
- 250ml cream
- 1 tea spoon vanilla extract
- 1 table spoon of sugar (if you don’t like your cakes too sweet, you can also skip it)
- 400g of fresh figs
- some mint for the decoration