Food Lane: Pavlova

We were having a birthday celebration a little while ago... and we were trying to find a dessert to make. My mom and I wanted to make a sugar free recipe for the birthday girl. After looking online at lots of recipes we decided that we wanted to make a pavlova. What could be better!?! Fresh fruit, whipped cream, and meringue. So we ended up making a pavlova using a sugar substitute instead of sugar.

Here is the recipe I used - Pavlova

I made two... one with strawberries, and one with kiwi and blackberries.

Start by drawing a 9 inch circle on parchment lined baking sheets. Then preheat your oven to 300 degrees.

Separate your egg yolks and your egg whites.

Pour the egg whites into your mixer and beat until stiff.

Start adding in your sugar substitute (or sugar) 1 T at a time, beating well in between. Continue this process until all of your sugar substitute is incorporated into your egg whites. You egg whites should be stiff and glossy when you are done.

Take your mixing bowl off your mixer and add in lemon...

... cornstarch...

... and vanilla...

... gently fold this together until just combined.

Spread your meringue to fit the circle on your parchment paper, making the edges slightly higher than the center.

Put the meringue in the oven to bake for 1 hour. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack. For some reason when I took mine out of the oven they had become a toasted brown instead of white... I don't know why this happened. I don't know if maybe it was the sugar substitute or if it was too close to the top of the oven when it was cooking, but it shouldn't looked so toasted (it tasted just fine but just wasn't quite the right color).