Australian · Dessert
Pavlova Roulade with Passionfruit Curd
- Intermediate
- 40 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, acid holding everything up to the light, leaving a faint perfume.
Ingredients
- 140 g egg white (about 4 large), at room temperature
- 220 g caster sugar
- 6 g cornflour (2 tsp)
- 5 ml white wine vinegar (1 tsp)
- 5 ml vanilla extract (1 tsp)
- 30 g flaked almonds
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 whole egg
- 50 g caster sugar, for the curd
- 120 g passionfruit pulp (about 6 fruit)
- 40 g unsalted butter, cold, in small cubes
- 300 ml double cream, at 4C (39F)
- 10 g icing sugar, for dusting
The skills inside
Whipping a meringueThe bare simmer: holding liquid below the boil
The words inside
Allergen screen
Found: dairy · egg · nuts
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Heat the oven to 180C (350F) and line a 33 by 23 cm tin with baking paper. Whisk the whites to soft peaks, then add the 220 g caster sugar a tablespoon at a time until the meringue is glossy and a pinch rubbed between finger and thumb feels smooth rather than gritty.
- Fold in the cornflour, vinegar and vanilla with a few strokes, spread level in the tin, scatter the almonds and bake 18 minutes until the top is pale gold and dry to a fingertip while the centre still gives under it. Cool in the tin. 18 min
- Whisk the yolks, the whole egg, 50 g sugar and passionfruit pulp in a bowl set over barely simmering water until the curd coats the back of a spoon at 80C (176F), then take it off the heat and beat in the cold butter a cube at a time until glossy. Chill.
- Turn the cooled meringue out onto paper dusted with icing sugar and peel off the lining. Whip the cream, still at 4C (39F) from the fridge, to soft peaks that flop when the whisk lifts, spread it over the meringue and spoon the cold curd across it in stripes.
- Roll from a short side using the paper to lift, letting the top crack as it turns, and chill seam down for 30 minutes before cutting with a serrated knife. 30 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Whipping a meringue 40 recipes
- Bowl and whisk are clean and dry with no trace of fat or yolk. Grease prevents the foam outright, and there is no recovering a bowl that had it partway through.
- The sugar went in gradually once the whites were already foaming, rather than all at once at the start.
- No grit: a little rubbed between finger and thumb feels smooth, so the sugar has dissolved into the foam rather than sitting in it.
- Stiff peaks means the tip stands with a slight bow when the whisk lifts, and the bowl can be tipped without the mass moving in it.
- Glossy and smooth rather than chalky or dull, with no liquid gathering underneath it in the bowl.
Where it goes wrong It was whipped past stiff peaks. A minute beyond glory the protein network tightens and tears, the foam turns grainy and matte, water weeps out beneath it, and folding that into anything gives a mixture that collapses on the way to the oven.
The bare simmer: holding liquid below the boil 183 recipes
- The surface is read rather than assumed: bubbles break slowly in one or two places, or the surface merely shivers, and it does not reach a rolling boil at any point.
- It was held there: the pot was watched and the heat adjusted rather than set once and left, and there is no tide mark up the pot wall from a boil-over.
- The liquid stayed as clear as it should be: no clouding from agitation, and no fat churned into an emulsion through it.
- Whatever is in the liquid is still intact: nothing shredded, broken up, or worried apart by movement.
- The level is roughly where the elapsed time should have left it; a large drop is the evidence that it ran hotter than this while nobody was looking.
Where it goes wrong It was brought to a boil and then left on the same heat, so it churned for the whole cook: the liquid clouded, the fat emulsified into it, and the solids broke apart into the broth.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Moscato d’Asti
- Also Right
- Late-harvest Riesling
- From the Taps
- Witbier
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling elderflower
Citrus desserts need a wine sweeter than they are, with acid enough to keep up: light, frothy, and low-proof wins.
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