Pavlova Craziness

The recent long silence has been due to the fact that an inordinate amount of my time over the last month or two has been taken up with one big project - my sister's wedding. Not only have I been assigned the roles of Chief Bridesmaid, hen weekend organiser and primary consultant on everything from canapes to tiaras, I've also rather rashly agreed to make the wedding cake itself - and the wedding is this Saturday!

More on the cake itself at a later date, but today's post comes courtesy of a surplus of ingredients caused by the wedding cake, or rather - its decoration. Before icing fruit cakes, one must coat them in marzipan or traditional plain almond icing. I've gone the whole hog and made my own paste - which for three tiers involves 18 egg yolks - leaving me with rather a lot of chicken albumen.

Pavlova seemed the obvious answer, and the glorious monstrosity you see below is made with two tiers of meringue (using all 18 egg whites), a couple of pints of cream and half of Sainsbury's organic fruit section. The whole thing started out as a bit of a joke, but I got rather serious on the technicalities, and have now produced what I consider to be the definitive Pavlova recipe. Now that I've done the hard work trawling through several dozen recipes working out the best quantities, it really is an extremely easy (and dare I say it - foolproof?) dessert to make. Feel free to scale it down if you have a few less egg whites...........

18 egg whites (slightly stale if possible)
36 oz sugar (ideally ¹/₃ each caster sugar, muscavado sugar and icing sugar)
3 tbsp. cornflour
3 tsp. white wine vinegar

Also required: an enormous bowl, balloon whisk and stamina - or a massive KitchenAid/Kenwood Chef!

To decorate: Double Cream - about 2 pints/1 litre; Splash of brandy or fruit liqueur; 2 passionfruits; Various seasonal fruits - I used 3 peaches, 4 apricots and 3 punnets raspberries

• Preheat the oven to 220^oC.
  
• Whisk the egg whites until they form really stiff peaks - the whisk should stand up by itself in the mix.
  
• Add the sugar a tablespoon at a time, beating well between each addition.
  
• When the mixture is thick and glossy (and all the sugar is added) spoon it out on to two baking sheets lined with baking parchment, and smooth out so it's more or less even, with a slight well in the centre.
  
• Put in the oven and immediately turn it down to 140^oC. Bake for 2 hours, swapping the pavlovas over halfway if you are cooking both in one oven.
  
• Turn off the oven and leave the pavlovas inside, with the door propped open, overnight to cool.

For the decoration, beat the cream to stiff peaks, then stir in a splash of brandy and the passionfruit pulps. Layer the two pavlovas with cream and fruit, saving the prettiest fruits for the top tier.

Feeds many many greedy people - but note, this recipe divides well into three so you can make a smaller one for a more modest feast, just reduce the cooking time by about 15 mins.