Praline Meringue Cake with Raspberries

This is a bit of a twist on the traditional Pavlova and the raspberries balance the sweetness from the caramel flavored meringue. Pavlova is a meringue dessert named after the Russian ballet dancer, Ánna Pávlova. The dessert is believed to have been created to honour the dancer during or after one of her tours to Australia and New Zealand. Pavlova has been a source of argument between the two countries for many years, however more serious research into the matter indicates New Zealand as source of today’s pavlova.

Serves 12
recipe from BBC Good Food

For the Meringue
175g whole almonds, toasted
225g golden caster sugar
225g light muscovado sugar
6 egg whites
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 teaspoon white wine vinegar

1kg raspberries
50g icing sugar, plus extra for decorating
568ml whipping cream

Heat oven to 140c and line 2 flat baking trays with baking parchment. Whizz about two thirds of the toasted almonds in a food processor until chopped. Don’t let them clump together. Roughly chop the remaining third with a knife. Stir the sugars together. Using an electic beater, beat the egg whites in a large bowl until stiff, then add the sugar in three batches, beating the mixture back to stiff after each addition. Add the cornstarch and vinegar and keep beating until the meringue mixture is glossy and so stiff that the beaters begin to feel heavy when stirring (almost 5 minutes). Quickly fold in all of the finely chopped almonds and most of the roughly chopped nuts with a spatula. Divide the mixture between two baking sheets. Spread both into 20cm circles, then scatter the remaining chopped nuts over. Bkae for 1 hour then turn the oven off and leave the meringues inside to cool (this will help to prevent them from cracking).

For the raspberry sauce, puree 600g of the raspberries in a food processor or blender. Press through a sieve to remove the seeds, then sweeten with 2 tablespoons of the icing sugar. Sieve the remaining icing sugar into the whipping cream and whip until it just holds it shape. Carefully swirl through two thirds of the sauce. To serve, slide one of the meringues off its baking paper onto a serving platter and spread over half the cream. Place the second meringue on top, pile over the rest of the cream and top with the remaining raspberries. Dust with a little bit of icing sugar.

The Culinary Chase’s Note: Oh my stars!! This was heaven on a plate! I must admit I was a bit worried it would be too sweet but the raspberries did the trick. This recipe called for strawberries but the ones I could get weren’t very nice looking. The other really nice thing is that the flavor of caramel came through and was actually oozing out of the sides. I’m not sure that was supposed to happen as you can see my meringue didn’t hold together that well (perhaps the high humidity played a part in it) but that didn’t stop us from tucking into this very delicious dessert.