Gluten Free Pavlova

This classic Australian dessert is a cinch to make and is perfect served with fruit.

Feeds 2 adults For a good bulk of my TV-viewing life, I've been a fan of domestic shows. IE: cooking shows, decorating shows, buying, selling or flipping property ... . When I'm in America, my TV is constantly tuned to TLC, Home and Garden and the Food Network. Here, in England, it's a bit of the same. Recently, I've been indulging in foodie shows such as "Come Dine With Me" and "MasterChef," and "Cook Yourself Thin."

In addition to being shows about making and or serving food, there has been a common denominator amongst all three of these and that is the classic Australian dessert, pavlova. I had never eaten a pavlova but it looked easy, yummy and I've been wanting to improve my dessert-making skills. So, on a whim, I went out on Thursday and purchased the ingredients necessary to make a pavlova, per Delia's recipe.
Pavlova isn't a popular American dish; in fact, I had never even heard of it until I moved to England. Wikipedia tells me that the dish was named for the ballerina Ana Pavlova and created in her honor during one of her tours to Aus in the 1920s. How unbelievably cool would it be to be immortalized as a dessert?!

Ingredients:

For the Pavlova
3 egg whites
6 oz/175g caster sugar
fresh strawberries
whipped cream

Instructions:

Pavlova

After separating the egg whites into a mixing bowl, mix with an electric mixer/whisk until soft peaks are formed and until the bowl can be overturned without anything spilling out.
Once desired consistency is reached, slowly fold in your sugar, about two ounces at a time, using a hand-held whisk or silicone spatula. Also, if you would like to add some flavoring such as vanilla essence or mocha, this would be the time to do it.
Once all the sugar is mixed in, spoon the meringue onto a cookie sheet that has been lined with greased parchment or baking paper. Make sure you use a metal tablespoon. After the meringue has been spooned in place, take a wooden skewer or a toothpick and swirl it around the top center of each dollop, creating the peak.
Bake in a pre-heated oven for an hour at 140C/275F.
After an hour has passed, turn the oven off, leaving the pavlovas over night (for crispier, drier meringues) or until the oven is completely cool.
Top with cream and fresh fruit.

Easy and delicious. But, I'd be cautious, the dessert is very sweet, as it is literally just egg white and sugar. So you might want to modify the amount of sugar used or use a sugar substitute. Also, if you don't have caster or superfine sugar, you can put the desired amount of normal sugar into your blender and pulse for a few seconds. It just grinds up the sugar to make it more fine. Which is all caster/superfine sugar is.

Enjoy!

Coming in the Foodie category
I would like to experiment with making my own coulis. I think I want to try a fruit coulis as well as a vegetable coulis.