Blueberry, Lemon & Passion Fruit Pavlova

It's funny but meringue used to be my least favourite dessert but lately they have really become my thing to bake, to eat and to flavour experiment with. It all started really with egg wash. I've been making so much bread lately that I have egg whites coming out of my ears, the freezer is jam packed with little sandwich bags marked with 2,3,4 whites so the love of the meringue recipe development began, and with that, my love for the gorgeous 2 ingredient delight started. I have now realised with a little careful recipe development there is no need for that over whelming sweetness in a pavlova dessert that I found off putting, balance the sweet with sharp, get it right and it is a dessert hard to beat.

For the Meringue

8 egg whites
400g caster sugar
Whip the whites in a very clean bowl to soft peak stage, keeping the whisk running start adding the sugar a tbsp at a time (don't try rushing) carry on whisking until when you place a little of the meringue between your thumb and forefinger it doesn't feel gritty. Drawn around a large dinner plate on a piece of parchment, place on a large flat baking sheet. Pipe or spoon small blobs onto the circle on the parchment. With the remaining meringue mixture spoon into a disposable piping bag, pipe small meringue kisses onto another lined baking tray,  Bake in a preheated oven 90 for about 5-6 hrs. Leave to cool completely before moving from the parchment.

For the topping

400ml Double cream

4 tbsp good lemon curd

1 punnet of blueberries

3 passion fruits

Whip the cream to very soft peaks, (the lemon curd will thicken so don't over whip) Fold in the lemon curd, spoon over the meringue, tumble over the blueberries, cut the passion fruits in half, taking care to save the juice, spoon fruit over the blueberries, to finish add some of the meringue kisses. Enjoy X

*For really white meringues bake on an extremely low and slow about 80-90 for 6-8 hrs

*If your meringues bleed, its because your are adding your sugar too quickly or not blending the sugar and egg whites properly, when the mix is ready to pipe, you shouldn't be able to feel any sugar grains in the the whipped meringue.

* 1 egg white = 50g caster sugar