Pavlova

The white shell cracks when a knife cuts into it, while a marshmallow-like softness remains inside. Pavlova is a dessert in which whipped cream and fruit are layered on a large meringue. It is popular at gatherings and at Christmas in Australia and New Zealand, where the fruits of the Southern Hemisphere summer adorn the white base. The name comes from a ballerina, but the older sweets called by that name were not all meringues.

Dry the surface while keeping the center soft

The base is not a sponge made with flour but a meringue of whipped egg whites. Dissolving sugar into it gives it gloss and body, so it holds its shape even when formed into a large mound.

Some recipes (the proportions of ingredients and the method) also add an acid such as vinegar or lemon juice, along with cornstarch and vanilla. The acid stabilizes the egg-white foam, helping it resist collapsing during and after whipping. Cornstarch absorbs excess liquid and helps keep moisture from seeping out after baking. Vanilla is added for aroma. Unlike small meringue cookies, which are dried right through to the center, this dessert gets its characteristic texture from a baking method that dries the outside while leaving softness inside.

In addition to whipping the egg whites as they are, there is also a method of warming the egg whites and sugar over a water bath before whipping. In the latter, the sugar is dissolved during the warming stage and the mixture is then whipped into a meringue that can hold its shape.

Whipping with sugar added gradually, and cooling after baking

One example of adding sugar after the egg whites are whipped is the basic recipe from Chelsea in New Zealand. It uses 450 grams of caster sugar for 6 egg whites, which are first whipped until soft peaks form. The sugar is added a quarter cup at a time, taking 10 minutes or more to add it all, and the mixture is beaten after each addition until glossy and thick. Vanilla, white vinegar and cornstarch are combined in afterward.

A mound about the size of a large plate is formed on a paper-lined baking tray and baked for about one and a half hours in a 110°C oven without the fan. The signs that it is done are a dry, crisp surface and a base that comes away from the paper. It is then left for 1 hour or more in the switched-off oven before being moved to a rack to cool. Through whipping, baking and cooling in the oven, the meringue is finished dry on the outside and soft on the inside.

Add the fruit and cream just before eating

The cooled base is kept dry in an airtight container, and cream and cut fruit are added before eating. The soft cream and tart fruit are enjoyed together with the sweet meringue. Once assembled, moisture from the cream and fruit moves into the shell, so the texture changes differently than when the base alone is stored.

The fruits used, such as kiwifruit, strawberries and passion fruit, vary by season and household. In New Zealand, versions with a soft center decorated with kiwifruit are common. In Australia, versions with a crisper exterior served with passion fruit are popular. Individual-sized pavlovas and rolled pavlovas are also made.

Besides piling everything onto one large base, there is also a style in which two thinner meringues are baked, with cream and fruit sandwiched between them as well. In an example published by Tomizawa Shoten in Japan, the bases are spread into circles with a spoon, baked separately, cooled and then stacked. A single tall base and a two-tier base with a layer of fruit between them differ in their cut surfaces and in how the layers come together as you eat.

Ices, jellies and baked meringues called pavlova

Russian-born Anna Pavlova toured Australia and New Zealand in 1926. Her first New Zealand performance was on May 26 in Auckland, after which she toured the main cities for 6 weeks.

Yet the name had been given to desserts even before then. The “Strawberries Pavlova” in the home section of the “New Zealand Herald” on November 11, 1911, is an iced dessert in which crushed strawberries are combined with boiled syrup and raspberry juice, strained, frozen, turned out of the mold and decorated with fruit. It is not made by whipping and baking egg whites.

In a 1926 Australian cookbook, too, pavlova was a jelly made of layers in different colors. Meanwhile, Te Ara, the government encyclopedia, cites the “Pavlova Cake” in the 1929 “New Zealand Dairy Exporter” as a record of a large baked meringue. While different desserts were being made under the same name, the name pavlova also came to be used for a meringue dessert with a composition close to today’s.

Creation stories handed down in Wellington and Perth

In New Zealand, there is a story that the head chef of a hotel in Wellington, where she stayed in 1926, created it for her. The story was related by biographer Keith Money and also introduced by art historian Angus Trumble; the chef’s name is not known for certain.

A 1927 cookbook by a Wellington church women’s group preserves Mrs. McRae’s “Meringue Cake.” A dessert close to today’s pavlova was being made without yet bearing the dancer’s name.

In Australia, the story that Bert Sachse of the Esplanade Hotel in Perth created it in 1935 is well known. According to the Museum of Perth, owner Elizabeth Paxton wanted a special dessert, and Sachse spent about a month experimenting to change a meringue that was too hard. He added cornstarch, aiming for a finish that was crisp outside and soft inside. According to the Paxton family, it was named when Elizabeth tasted it and likened it to the lightness of the dancer.

Sachse’s later accounts also include a story that he drew on a meringue from a New Zealand magazine. Records of meringues called pavlova, and of similar desserts, exist from before 1935, and who first made it remains unclear.

Precedents of meringue with fruit, and its establishment as a national specialty

Emily Futter’s “meringue to be filled with fruit” is a dessert in which the top is cut off, the inside is filled with fruit and the cut-off piece is put back on as a lid. It has no vinegar, no cornstarch and no pavlova name, and the New Zealand edition of the book was a re-edited version of the Australian edition. Food culture researcher Michael Symons discussed these differences in 2010, considering precedents with a similar structure separately from the process by which the dessert became a national specialty.

Precedents that layer meringue, fruit and cream also exist in German-American tortes from the American Midwest in the mid-19th century. In a 2015 introduction to their research, Andrew Paul Wood and Annabelle Utrecht put forward the theory that European foam desserts changed in the places where immigrants settled and eventually connected to the Southern Hemisphere. Much remains unclear about how similar desserts made in various places were passed on, but beyond the debate over whether it was born in Australia or New Zealand, its connection with immigrant confectionery cultures has also been discussed.

As households and cooks adjusted the thickness of the meringue and the softness of its center and added the fruit they preferred, it came to be loved as a celebratory dessert in both countries.

Pavlova made with mixes or ready-baked bases

Besides whipping egg whites from scratch, some home cooks use a premixed powder. White Wings’ “Pavlova Magic” is a product that combines egg white, sugar, starch, acid and other ingredients in advance. You add 140 milliliters of water and 130 grams of caster sugar, whip the mixture, form it into a mound and bake it; the manufacturer has already done part of the measuring and mixing of the ingredients.

Large ready-baked bases are also sold in Australian supermarkets. Whether it is whipped and baked from a mix or made with a purchased baked base, seasonal fruit and the cream of one’s choice are added at home, and it is finished just before eating.

Glossary