Dessert "Pavlova": history of origin and detailed recipe. Wishes for decoration

31.07.2022

How did this woman deserve to stay with us for centuries in a dessert with a divine and light taste? Sweet, strange, tender Anna.

We do not know how the famous ballerina of the twenties of the last century actually lived. Even the biography of Anna Pavlova is devoted only to the art and secrets of virtuoso dance. The second book about a beautiful and sensitive creature was written from the words of her husband Victor Dandre. Overwhelmed with despair and longing after the loss of a loved one, the meaning of his whole life, he was only able to describe in general terms their happy journey together.

So Anna lived with her work and was overwhelmed by her muse, that she did not see the point in talking about love troubles and everyday problems. For that, her career growth was observed by Australia and New Zealand. The star soared into the sky and sparkled with all its facets so brightly that standing ovations and millions of flowers at their feet turned out to be a small fraction of what they could give their idol in gratitude for the time spent on her performances.

Disputes over the creation of a dessert for a ballerina do not stop until now. In New Zealand, it is believed that the chef of the hotel restaurant, where Pavlova spent her free time, during her tour in 1926, became the “daddy” of the recipe. But the inhabitants of Australia claim that the dessert in their Esplanade hotel menu appeared in 1935 with the help of the famous culinary specialist Bert Sachet. After tasting the cake, the chef himself could not restrain his admiration, exclaiming “Oh, how airy he is! Just like Pavlova herself! And, since this particular cake was made on the occasion of the ballerina's birthday, he did not have to come up with a name.

An interesting fact is that today we will not be able to accurately determine the authentic recipe for the Anna Pavlova cake. Professor Helen Leach has made an excellent collection of recipes derived from the original under the same name. There are 667 of them in the book. The desserts were collected from three hundred original cookery books. The professor called the selection "Pavlova: A Piece of New Zealand's Culinary History."

At the heart of all recipes for cakes and dessert masses is meringue. It symbolizes the white outfit of a ballerina. The decoration is snow-white butter cream and slices of fresh tropical fruits. Outside, the dessert is a baked solid mass, inside which contains the whole secret of the recipe. Delicate, airy and unimaginably tasty secret of real meringue under the crust lies in this creation of a confectioner.

Cooking the Anna Pavlova cake according to the classic recipe takes a lot of time and effort, but it's worth it. If you overexpose a heated oven or meringue, on the contrary, there is not enough fire, then the dessert will be hopelessly spoiled. Everything must be done strictly in proportions until the last second of baking. And then your dessert will be perfect, as in the photo.

If the cake emits sweet droplets during baking, then the oven is very hot. If you took the dessert out of the oven and noticed that he began to “cry”, then he did not have enough heat and time to fully cook. The first time the recipe may not work, do not be discouraged. "Pavlova" - capricious sweetness.
From the very first point of preparation, be attentive to your dish.

While the creation process is going on, turn on your favorite music, cheer yourself up, sing, dance around the kitchen and cook dessert with love. This will help you create your masterpiece under the eternal name "Anna Pavlova".

Dessert recipe:

To prepare a real incomparable Anna Pavlova cake, you will need the following products:

Chicken egg 4 pcs
Sugar 225 gr
Vinegar 1 tsp
Vanilla sugar, vanillin 1 tsp
Starch 1 tbsp

Let's start cooking:

To begin with, according to the recipe, we need to separate the protein from the yolk so that not a single drop of the yolk gets into the white mass, otherwise the dough will not initially be suitable for making this dessert. Remember: one mistake and all the work will most likely go to the trash can.

Whilst your oven is heating up to 180C, beat egg whites until frothy, which should be as thick as possible. If you have a mixer, beat with a mixer. This is allowed in the recipe. With good thickening, add sugar in portions and mix it with foam. If you pour out all the sugar at once, the foam will stop forming; the mass will not turn out to be lush.

Prepare a separate clean and dry bowl. Mix vanilla with starch in it, add 1 teaspoon of vinegar, mix well. Gently pour the resulting mixture into the proteins, continuing to stir the mass. Make sure that the resulting mixture shines, becomes very thick.

It is not recommended to spread the blank for dessert on a bare baking sheet. Use parchment. Imagine an even circle on a baking sheet or draw it on parchment with a pencil. When evenly laying out the mass in the drawn circle, pay attention to the fact that there is a margin of 2 centimeters to the edges - as in the photo.

Place the resulting form in a preheated oven and immediately reduce the heat to 100C. To bake a dessert according to the recipe, you will need exactly 60 minutes.
Do not pull out the meringue immediately. If it comes into contact with cold air, it will deform and deflate. The form must cool in the oven.

You can take out the already cooled cake, which has remembered its shape, put it on a beautiful cake dish and decorate with whipped cream and pre-cooked pieces of fresh fruit. For lovers of piquancy and originality in recipes, add passion fruit or feihua as a fruit.

Decoration wishes:

Try to make sure that the cake is decorated just before serving. Because fruit juice can soak through the hard but brittle rind and ruin the look.

This recipe is designed for 8 servings, which, if desired, can be consumed even by two. The lightness and low calorie content of the cake - meringue does not allow you to get enough of dessert and move away from the plate, at least for a moment. Baking turns out to be unconditionally tender, crispy, sweet and unobtrusive.

And here is a visual aid - a video clip about the preparation of dessert.

Interesting Dessert Facts - Pawzilla and Palokong

From love to "Anna" history is full of various events of different times. For example, quite recently, 15 years ago, the New Zealand National Museum Te Papa Tongareva in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, on his birthday created a huge Pavlova cake according to a historical recipe 45 meters long (see photo). Due to her huge size, Annushka was renamed "Pavzilla" to denote his scale and pomposity. It was an honor to share this dessert between the guests and the heroes of the occasion, the Minister of New Zealand, Jenny Shipley.

But the years go by and the popularity of the eternally young ballerina is still gaining momentum, captivating with her perfection again and again. This is confirmed by the facts that happened in 2005 in the same New Zealand, which does not have a soul in the work of confectionery art “Anna Pavlova”. A huge sweet Pavlokong cake has become an ornament of the Eastern Institute of Technology, thanks to its students. To make such a huge admiration for dessert, it took as many as 5 thousand egg whites, a hundred kilos of sugar and the same number of liters of pure cream. The dessert recipe was followed in this case as well.

So the splendor of the ballerina of the last century, the incomparable Pavlova, remained among us, in memories, photos and the history of the creation of a dessert that is loved in all corners of the planet. And, even those who are not at all passionate about art and do not understand who they are talking about, after tasting this dessert, they will definitely take an interest in the biography of a person who managed to win the hearts of the people so much that he would never die.

There were a lot of bukaffes… I’m going directly to the process of making the Pavlova dessert. The amount of ingredients in the original recipe was exactly as I list below, but I still have a lot of cream and a little sauce. But I used them a couple of days later to make a cake, the recipe of which I will also post later.

Pavlova Dessert Ingredients:

Meringues (meringue):

Recipe Information

Cuisine:Australian
Type of dish: dessert
Cooking method: in the oven, on the stove
Servings:12

3 egg whites;
3/4 cup sugar;
1/2 tsp starch.

Custard:

2 and 1/4 cups whole milk;
6 egg yolks;
2/3 cup sugar;
1/3 cup starch;
1 vanilla pod, cut in half lengthwise.

Butter cream:

100gr. softened butter;
4 tablespoons powdered sugar;

Raspberry Sauce:

3 and 1/3 cups fresh or frozen raspberries
2 cups of powdered sugar;
1 tbsp lemon juice;
any fresh berries and fruits for decoration (I had raspberries and black currants).

Dessert "Pavlova"

Due to the fact that the preparation of dessert takes a lot of time, I recommend preparing the meringues in advance. But be sure to keep it in the fridge! In the heat they "float".

Meringues for dessert

I tried to describe all the nuances of preparing meringues earlier (see). Therefore, now I’ll just tell you and show you how to cook them for the Pavlova dessert.

For him, we need a simple meringue or "French". Beat egg whites with a whisk attachment.

You can add a pinch of salt to the whites at the beginning of whipping. First, start the mixer at a slow speed, for about half a minute. Large transparent bubbles will appear in the bowl.

Increase mixer speed to medium. Beat one - one and a half minutes. Proteins turn white, cease to be transparent. The mixer leaves traces.

We increase the speed to the maximum. It's time to gradually add the sugar. We do not stop the mixer, but pour sugar into the bowl, 1 spoon at a time. Beat for 4 minutes and turn off. The foam has become dense and holds its shape well, so well that if you turn the bowl upside down, the whites will not flow out of it.

We set the oven to heat up to 70 ° C and prepare a baking sheet, which we line with baking paper. On paper, you first need to draw circles with a diameter of about 8 cm with a pencil.

Then, using a cornet and such a nozzle, as in the photo below, we deposit the protein mass on a baking sheet with paper.

We plant the squirrels in such a way that we get nests. We start from the center of the circle and move to the edges, and then build up the sides of the nests in circles.

Bake the meringues in the oven for 3 hours. Then we turn off the oven, open the door and cool them there for another hour. Yes, you can’t open the oven during baking and, preferably, don’t stomp near it, don’t jump and don’t knock on it so that the squirrel doesn’t fall. The finished meringues should be dry on the outside and slightly soft on the inside.

We put them in the refrigerator, even if you plan to immediately prepare the cream.

Cooking custard for dessert "Pavlova"

We begin to prepare the custard. In a bowl, whisk together half a glass of milk, egg yolks, 1/3 of a glass of sugar and starch.

No need to achieve uniformity, just mix everything well.

Bring the remaining milk to a boil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan, but do not boil. Remove from the stove and pour a mixture of yolks with milk, sugar and starch into it in a thin stream. At the same time, stir vigorously with a whisk.

We should get a thick custard. At this stage, it has a somewhat lumpy texture.

Therefore, the cream further needs to be beaten with a mixer, then it will become smooth and uniform.

Immediately after cooking, cover the cream while still hot with cling film. We put the film directly on the surface of the cream and even press it down with our hand so that the film lies tightly on the surface, otherwise a crust will form, but we don’t need it. First, cool the cream to room temperature, and then put it in the refrigerator.

Cooking buttercream

In the Pavlova dessert, according to the classic recipe, two creams are supposed to be used. We have just prepared the first one, now we will make the second one. For butter cream, beat the butter with a mixer until fluffy, and then add powdered sugar in parts and continue to beat until we get a fluffy, homogeneous mass, about 10-15 minutes. We remove the cream in the refrigerator.

The next step in the preparation of the Pavlova dessert is raspberry sauce

Mix raspberries, sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and cook for a couple of minutes. Then strain through a sieve to remove the berries.

We return the juice to the pan and cook over very low heat until the juice thickens and boils down several times.

Collecting dessert

Finally, we have prepared all the ingredients for the Pavlova dessert! It remains only to put everything together. Dessert must be collected immediately before serving! First, mix both creams together well. Then pour 2 tbsp on each serving plate. raspberry sauce.

Put the meringue on top.

We fill it with cream.

Decorate with berries (and fruits) and lightly sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Dessert "Pavlova" is ready! Difficult but delicious. A classic with that name cannot be otherwise.

Enjoy your meal!

Save to "Cookbook"

Anna Ponomarenko

Desserts of New Zealand and Australian cuisine are distinguished by an abundance of ingredients from coconut: shavings, butter, milk, paste. But there is also a completely “European” taste - the Pavlova dessert, which is sometimes called the Australian Pavlova dessert.

This is exactly what the correct spelling of this dish looks like, in quotation marks. After all, it is dedicated to the famous Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, who toured Australia and New Zealand in the 1920s. At the heart of the delicacy is a meringue cake and a cream of whipped cream or mascarpone cheese. Doesn't it look like an airy tutu?

Dessert "Pavlova": calories

It should be clarified that in Russia meringues are usually called meringues.

This cake is baked without flour and consists of only two products - egg whites and sugar.

The Pavlova dessert (a classic recipe) differs from the dry meringue familiar to Russians by its “undercooked” middle, which is somewhat reminiscent of marshmallows, marshmallows, marshmallows and soufflés combined.

Despite such an analogy frightening with its “sweetness”, the calorie content of Anna Pavlova’s dessert, the recipe of which is very simple, is not as threatening as it might seem.

Dry, light and airy meringue actually takes up more volume than it contains calories.

Some "laws" of meringue cooking

They are quite simple, but you need to follow them very carefully:

proteins are taken only from very fresh eggs, otherwise the dessert will turn out with a “rotten” smell and it will have to be “flavored” with additives that can simply “kill” all the charm of its own unique taste of this light dish;
proteins should be carefully separated from the yolks;
proteins should be well chilled, then it will be easier to whip them into a steep foam (this is important!);
the dishes in which the proteins will be whipped must be perfectly clean (without a trace of fat) and absolutely dry (without a trace of moisture);
when whipping backs (both with a blender and a whisk), do not change the direction of movement (knead either only clockwise, or only against it, or with the “eight” movement, but also only in one direction).
before proceeding with the processing of proteins, you should prepare all the ingredients in advance so that you don’t be distracted for a second from the whipping process and add the necessary products to the dishes with eggs without stopping working with a whisk or blender.

The most convenient way is, of course, to use a stationary food processor with the appropriate attachment, then your hands will be free and the process will go faster.

To start preparing the Pavlova dessert, you should prepare a baking sheet that needs to be lined with parchment or baking paper. It is best to pre-mark a circle on paper (for example, circle the lid of a suitable size pot with the end of a fork without piercing the paper).

The recipe below will allow you to bake a cake with a diameter of 20-24 cm, however, its height will be correspondingly different. It is not forbidden to put two medium-sized cakes (18-20 centimeters each) on one large baking sheet, placing them diagonally at a distance from each other.

When baking, the meringue cake “grows” greatly in size - both in height and in diameter, so it is absolutely not recommended to bake it in molds or in a pan!

Main Ingredients

So, how to cook Pavlova's meringue dessert?

This will require:

4 egg whites;
incomplete glass of granulated sugar;
2-3 tablespoons with a slide of starch (better than corn, but potato can also be used);
vanilla sugar on the tip of a knife (a little more can be);
a teaspoon of white wine vinegar;
at the end, you can add a tablespoon of liquor or cognac.

You need to cook the mass for meringue according to this recipe quickly so that the proteins do not have time to warm up, otherwise it will not be possible to beat them into a strong foam. But if suddenly the process "freezes", you can add a pinch or two of ordinary table salt.

The process of preparing the mass for meringue

Mix sugar and vanilla sugar.
Turn on the oven to warm up by setting the temperature control to 180-200 degrees.
Place the whites in a deep, clean, dry bowl, start beating, setting the blender to the lowest speed.
As foam appears, carefully add a tablespoon of the mixture of granulated sugar and vanilla. (If you add all the sugar at once, the foam will not rise and instead of lush meringues you will get flat “rubber” cakes.) Gradually increase the speed of the blender to medium.
Continue whisking until the sugar is completely dissolved, until the mass begins to hold its shape.
Pour wine vinegar onto the finished mass, sprinkle with starch and knead either at the lowest speed of the mixer (or just with a nozzle, not including the device), or with a wide spatula.

Granulated sugar in the recipe can be replaced with powdered sugar, but whites are beaten better with sand, since not only the rotation of the whisk or nozzles “works” here, but also the moment of grinding the grains.

Properly whipped mass for meringue does not fall out of the bowl in which it was kneaded, even if the bowl is turned upside down!

The process of laying out the meringue mass on a baking sheet

The mass for the classic Pavlova dessert is laid out on a pre-prepared baking sheet directly with a spoon inside the circle indicated on paper. When laying out, it is necessary to form a small, wide enough rim along the edge of the circle. To do this, distribute part of the mass from the center to the edges and slightly trim them.

You can “grow” peaks from the protein mass along the edges by pulling it straight up with a spoon.

Everything must be done quickly, not allowing the mass to settle, which can happen in a hot and humid room (it should be remembered that the oven is already warming up, and this does not contribute to lowering the temperature in the kitchen).

meringue baking

The formed protein mass is carefully placed in an oven preheated to 180 degrees. It is important to try not to shake the baking sheet, not to slam the oven door, to monitor the baking process through the glass, without opening the oven in any case, otherwise the tender meringue, which has begun to rise, will immediately settle and nothing will save it from stickiness and "rubbery".

After a while (7-10 minutes), the fire in the oven is reduced to medium or low. It should be remembered that baking meringue is, by and large, drying the cake at a high temperature. And this process is quite long: at 140 degrees it will take about an hour or an hour and a quarter. At 100 degrees - an hour and a half, at 90 - about two hours.

It is important to let the baked cake "grab", that is, to gain a foothold in an elevated state. At the same time, the sides of the cake may begin to brown and crack, but this is not considered a “marriage”.

If you like the yellowish-cream color of the meringue more, then you can keep the oven temperature high for a longer time and reduce the heat only after the cake starts "fry". But you shouldn’t get too carried away in the pursuit of an unusual color, because this is fraught with a “deviation” in the consistency of the middle of the finished dish, which in the original recipe should remain in the form of a soufflé.

Most importantly: the cake must cool right in the oven! Therefore, it is best to bake it at night or early in the morning. The maximum that can speed up the cooling process is to slightly open the door after turning off the fire, after an hour open it wider, but try to avoid drafts in that direction. And most importantly - do not slam the door by negligence, otherwise the meringue will settle and all the beauty will be lost!

Dessert decoration with cream and fruit

The main rule when decorating the Pavlova dessert with cream and fruit is to do it just before serving!

If you are now sad, hoping to find the “same” recipe for this dessert, I hasten to reassure you. “The same one” is probably not to be found. Because the debut of this sweet on the culinary scene took place at the beginning of the last century. Ballet dancer Anna Pavlova in 1926 toured the world, and admiring spectators generously endowed the "star" with signs of attention. One of these is a dessert named after her.

By the way, it is still not known whether the chef from Australia or New Zealand presented this dish to Anna. But be that as it may, the delicacy immediately strode across the countries and for almost a century has been a classic of the world confectionery art.

Dessert "Pavlova": a step by step recipe

If you and your kitchen are ready to take on this challenge, I suggest you start.

Ingredients

squirrels - 4 pieces;
powdered sugar - 180 g;
corn starch - 2.5 tsp;
wine vinegar - 1.5 tsp;
vanilla sugar - 10 g.

A little about ingredients

With proteins, everything is clear - neatly separated from the yolks, they are waiting in the wings.

We need cornstarch for the viscosity of the inner world of our meringue. Yes, it's meringues. Because meringue is a protein cream baked until dry. And meringue is the same, but with a stretching core.

Wine vinegar. In general, "tartar" is often found in recipes. It sounds almost like “unicorn tail” to me, so I chose the middle option between “cream of tartar” and just vinegar or lemon.

There is not much to say about vanilla sugar. Except perhaps that it can not be used at all.

Cooking

Are we getting started? First, turn on the oven at 130 degrees. Now we take the whites and beat them in a fat-free and dry bowl, gradually adding powdered sugar with vanilla.

When the powder is completely introduced, starch can be added.

At the final stage of whipping, when the protein peaks are already holding their shape well, pour in the wine vinegar. Continue beating until stiff, standing peaks.

After that, with a pastry bag, we place our meringue in the form of a nest on the parchment.

If you want a portioned dessert, then a few nests, but of a smaller diameter.

All. We lower the temperature in the oven to 100 degrees and send our workpiece there for an hour and a half. Here, given the errors in the temperature regime of ovens and the different sizes of desserts, you should turn on all your intuition. The right meringue will be crispy on the outside and gooey on the inside. If water drops suddenly appeared, then it was overexposed.

We cool the meringue slowly, just slightly opening the oven door. And after 40 minutes we get it completely.

As soon as the dessert preparation has completely cooled down, we begin to deal with the cream. The most suitable are whipped cream topped with berries.

For cream:

cream 33% fat - 300 g;
powdered sugar - exclusively to your taste. But under the condition of a very sweet meringue, it is better not to abuse the sugar in the cream;
Berries are preferably fresh. But you can also frozen, if you drain the juice from them in advance.

We begin to whip the cream, gradually adding powdered sugar. Feel free to taste to control the sweetness.

Turn off the mixer when the whisk begins to leave a clear pattern on the surface of the cream. Now we fill our meringues with cream and decorate with berries.

By this time, tea should already be brewed, because the Anna Pavlova dessert must be assembled strictly before serving.

Enjoy your meal!

Pavlova's meringue cake, created by Australian confectioners a hundred years ago in honor of the incredibly talented Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, resembles a snow-white tutu. A light, airy, lacy dessert is associated with a Russian dancer who conquered the world with her unsurpassed talent, elegance and grace. True, New Zealand confectioners claim that they are the authors of the original dessert. Let's not argue, but rather try to bake this confectionery miracle. The cake is made with French meringue, whipped cream and strawberries, with a crispy crust on the outside and a tender, melt-in-your-mouth meringue on the inside. According to eyewitnesses, Anna Pavlova really liked this cake and she enjoyed it with pleasure during her tour in Australia and New Zealand. The recipe is ingenious and so simple that you can easily prepare the Pavlova cake at home, even without special culinary preparation.

Preparing products for dessert

To prepare the Pavlova cake at home, we need the following products: chilled egg whites, sugar or powdered sugar, cream with a fat content of 33%, vanillin, wine vinegar and corn starch, which can be replaced with potato starch (although potato starch will need 2 times less). If you don't like vinegar, substitute lime or lemon juice, although some recipes combine vinegar with citrus juice. Instead of cream, you can use various cream cheeses such as mascarpone or full-fat sour cream. For decoration, you will need powdered sugar, chocolate, nuts or confectionery powder.

By the way, it is quite appropriate to replace whipped cream with a light low-calorie yogurt mixed with honey instead of sugar, or even make an unsweetened cream, because the cream itself is slightly sweet, besides, fruits provide additional sweetness. Instead of cream, you can also use fruit sorbet or thick berry syrup. Of course, this will no longer be a classic cake, but you don’t have to worry about the figure.

How to beat egg whites for french meringue

Beat egg whites only in a dry and clean bowl, because even a drop of moisture or fat can interfere with the process and the foam will not be as strong as it should be. Some housewives pre-degrease the dishes with lemon juice and wipe them dry. The opinions of confectioners on the temperature of meringue proteins differ - some believe that it is better to pre-cool them, while others use room temperature proteins. Only one thing can be said for sure: cold eggs beat better and faster, and slightly warm proteins give a softer foam. A pinch of salt is often added to proteins to obtain a lush foam. In general, all housewives have their own culinary subtleties and secrets.

Proteins for the Pavlova cake need to be whipped in a mixer - first at low speed, and then increasing speed and gradually adding powdered sugar, literally a tablespoon at a time. Sugar is always added only after the peaks have become stable, otherwise the proteins will be hard to beat. Properly whipped meringue holds its shape well, it is quite dense and at the same time very smooth and airy. After sugar, you can carefully introduce other products into the protein mass, mixing them carefully and not very intensively.

Delicate core - the highlight of the cake: how to bake meringue

You can make one large cake, bake several mini cakes, or make dessert in the form of small cakes. Protein products are usually baked on baking paper so that they do not stick. Draw a circle of the desired shape on the paper, lightly sprinkle the paper with cornmeal and spread the protein mass evenly, leveling it with a spoon. For ease of formation of the cake, you can use a detachable form. The edges of the airy meringue should be slightly higher to form a cup, which is subsequently filled with cream. You can also make a very deep vase, similar to a volcano with a crater, decorate the surface of the meringue with a relief pattern, or give the cake an original shape using a pastry syringe.

The meringue is baked in two stages - the first stage lasts 5 minutes, the temperature is 140-150 ° C. This is necessary so that the meringue crust grabs and becomes crispy. At the second stage, the meringue is cooked for about half an hour at a temperature of 120 ° C. You can bake the cake in a different way - heat the oven to 200 ° C, then reduce the heat to 90-100 ° C and bake the meringue for another 1.5-2 hours. The most suitable baking mode is bottom-up with convection, because in this case the meringue will dry well, and the inside will remain soft. Cooking time will vary depending on your oven and the size of the meringue, but there are certain signs you can look for. If the meringue seems too wet, then it’s too early to turn off the fire, and if drops of syrup appear on its surface, you have dried out the dessert.

Do not open the oven while the cake is baking, otherwise the meringue will settle, be patient. After turning off the oven, do not immediately take out the baking sheet, let the cake stand for a while, cool down and “come to its senses”.

Cream and juicy fruits: decorating the cake

While the cake is cooling in the oven, beat the chilled heavy cream with a mixer or whisk, but do not overdo it, otherwise the butter will separate from the whey. The right buttercream always turns out to be light, tender and dense.

Put the baked and cooled meringue on a dish, cover it on top and sides with buttercream and garnish with more strawberries, although you can use any berries and fruits. Put mint leaves on the berries, pour the cake with fruit puree or chocolate sauce, sprinkle with powdered sugar or grated chocolate - you can decorate the dessert in different ways, it all depends on your imagination. Some confectioners decorate the dessert with white and dark chocolate painting, use nuts and candied fruits. Serve the finished dessert immediately. Pavlova cake should be eaten immediately, preferably not leaving it for tomorrow.

Cake "Pavlova": cooking secrets

For the cake, you need to beat the whites very well to get a thick and strong foam, and instead of sugar, it is better to take powdered sugar. Sometimes salt is added to the protein mass for better whipping. The classic Pavlova cake recipe has cornstarch and vinegar, and these ingredients are very important because they create the crispy crust of the meringue, inside of which lies a soft and airy cream. This is the main difference between dessert and ordinary meringue. Some recipes mention flour, which is added to proteins in small quantities. Thanks to it, the dough turns out to be more plastic, you can create the most bizarre shapes from it or hide the filling inside.

The cake can be baked as a whole or in portions, and decorated with strawberries, passion fruit, kiwi or raspberries. In general, any fruits and berries, but the combination of strawberries and passion fruit is a classic. The cake can be decorated with mint or lemon balm leaves - for freshness and aroma.

And one more secret - collect the cake right before serving, otherwise the meringue layers will soak too quickly with berry or fruit juice, soften, and the juice will flow, making the dessert look unattractive. It is advisable to eat the cake immediately, because the next day it becomes tasteless. But meringue is recommended to bake in advance. For example, the day before the planned tea party, so that the cookies dry out and become crispy.

Pavlova cake: a step by step recipe

There are about 700 recipes for this meringue cake around the world, and you can master many of the cooking options. But first, let's get acquainted with the basic, classic recipe, on the basis of which you can experiment in the future.

Ingredients: proteins - 6 pcs., powdered sugar - 300 g, wine vinegar - 1.5 tbsp. l., cornstarch - 4 tsp, lemon juice - 1 tsp, vanillin - on the tip of a knife, cream (fat content 35%) - 350 ml, powdered sugar - 4 tsp, berries and fruits - to your taste.

Cooking method:

1. Separate the whites from the yolks.

2. Beat the whites to make strong peaks.

3. Add powdered sugar and continue beating.

4. Combine the protein mass with corn starch, vinegar, lemon juice and vanilla.

5. Mix the dough well.

6. Preheat the oven to 120°C and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

7. Spoon the meringue into a raised bowl.

8. Bake the cake for about 1.5 hours until it becomes dense.

9. Turn off the heat and let the meringue cool right in the oven.

10. Whip cream with powdered sugar until thick.

11. Fill the recess in the bowl with the resulting cream.

12. Decorate the cake with any berries and fruits you like.

Cut the cake and enjoy a delicate dessert, feeling how pleasantly the meringue crunches with a juicy and soft filling reminiscent of fresh marshmallows.

Chocolate cake "Pavlova": recipe with photo

An unusually delicious cake for chocolate lovers and just a sweet tooth. Preheat the oven to 150°C, while whisking 3 egg whites, gradually adding 175 g of sugar - about 1 tbsp. l. In the finished whipped proteins, enter 4 tbsp. l. cocoa powder and mix well.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and shape into two meringues. Bake the meringues for an hour until they are firm enough, then turn off the oven and let the meringues cool.

Whip 200 ml of heavy cream with 50 g of powdered sugar and assemble the cake, connecting the meringues with cream. Fill the meringues with cream. Instead of butter cream, you can use fresh cream or sorbet. Decorate with berries to your taste and sprinkle with grated chocolate. Chocolate meringue cake is a real culinary masterpiece!

This delicacy is so beautiful and tasty that it is often prepared for the holidays. Not surprisingly, the world's largest ort "Pavlova" was prepared in 2005 by students of the Eastern Institute of Technology in New Zealand. The length of the cake was 65 meters, and it took about 5,000 egg yolks, 150 kg of sugar and cream to make it. Surprisingly, it was eaten instantly, the next day there was nothing left. May your dessert suffer the same fate. Happy tea drinking!