Rolled Pavlova

Okay I don’t usually do this, I don’t usually post about a dish that was not so successful.
But I’m gonna do it anyway, because I already took the pictures, and I don’t know if and when I’ll make this again. (Actually I know I will make it again, coz it’s nagging to be perfected!! But I don’t know when)
I saw this made, on, believe it or not, Houses Behaving Badly, of all shows.
I then googled for the recipe and found many versions of it, so I took the simplest version and further simplified it.

Rolled Pavlova

4 egg whites
a pinch of salt
8 tablespoons of sugar
1 teaspoon cornflour
2 teaspoons vinegar (any white, clear kind)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
some sliced almonds (depends on how much you like it)
a few tablespoons of icing/caster sugar for sprinkling
250ml cream (thick or whipped)
fruits (fresh or pulped or canned. For this one, I used a blueberry pie filling from a can)

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 400deg Farenhite for electric ovens, 350deg Farenhite for gas ovens.
Beat egg whites with a pinch of salt till soft peaks form. Add the cornflour and vinegar, mix. Add sugar and vanilla, beat till stiff. (Jamie Oliver says that if you can hold the bowl over your head without the eggs falling on your head, then you’re done!)
Spread the egg whites evenly into a greased jelly roll tin lined with a greased parchment paper. (I lined my tin with aluminum foil, then sprayed non-stick cooking spray over the foil.). Sprinkle sliced almonds, as much as you like.
If using an electric oven, put the tin in, then immediately reduce heat to 350 deg Farenhite. For gas oven, just put the tin in. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, till the top starts to yellow.
Take the tin out, and sprinkle the top with sugar. Wait till the tin is cool enough to touch, then carefully lift and flip over the pavlova onto grease-proof paper. (What I did was, I took the whole pavlova out foil and all, put wax paper over the pavlova, put the tin upside down on the wax paper and pavlova, flip everything over, then peel off the tin foil.) Let the pavlova cool.
Spread cream over the pavlova, then spread fruits on 2/3 of the whole thing. Roll the pavlova lengthwise, starting from the edge closest to the fruits, using the waxed paper to assist you along. Makes sure the edge ends up at the bottom. Wrap whole thing with the wax paper, chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
To serve, cut them up like swiss rolls. You can sprinkle more icing sugar on top and serve with a dollop of cream if you want. Else, it’s good enough as it is.

As you can see, this one didn’t turn out quite right. :@
The pavlova was a bit thin. Next time I’m going to use a slightly smaller tin so that I get a thicker pavlova. I think I also slightly burnt the bottom .. *sheepish grin*.
I can’t seem to get the ‘rolling’ right either. I always get a thick blob of fruit in the middle that oozes out when I cut the roll.. maybe next time I shouldn’t put the fruits too close to the edge.
This dessert is not as sweet as the conventional pavlova, using only 8 tablespoons of sugar compared to 250grams. Therefore, you can get away with a sweeter filling, whereas the conventional pavlova goes better with slightly sour toppings, like passionfruit pulp, strawberries, kiwis and I’ve even had it with bananas (yummy!). The first time I made the rolled pavlova, I used mango pulp, mixed with a bit of gelatine to give it a bit of ‘hold’. I think you could also get away with using jam as the filling... mmmm....
This pavlova do not have the crispy outer crust the conventional pavlova does. It ends up having more like a sponge cake kinda texture. The almonds should add a little crunchiness to the dessert. I’ve tried sprinkling coconuts, but my kids didn’t really like it.

All in all, preparation time was about 20 minutes (depending on how good you are at beating the egg whites), baking 20 minutes, then waiting for it to cool about 15 minutes, then chilling for another 30minutes to an hour. So roughly, you nead at least 2 hours of lead time to prepare this dessert for a party.

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Happy trying! :D
Don’t let the monkeys steal your eggs! :laugh:

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