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Pavlova — cartoon recipe illustration
Dessert

Pavlova

Serves 10–12 Prep 10 min Cook 1 hr 30 min Total 1 hr 40 min (plus overnight cooling in oven)

Here is our working pavlova for Scoops & Dishes: no doorway fluff, just a cookable page with Australian metric detail and notes that prevent the usual failures. As written it serves 10–12. Budget about 10 min to prep and 1 hr 30 min to cook or bake, roughly 1 hr 40 min (plus overnight cooling in oven) all up, across 8 ingredients and 6 method steps. Oven cue in the method is 170°C. Preheat fully; a cold start throws off the 1 hr 40 min (plus overnight cooling in oven) timing and can leave centres underdone while edges race ahead. After cooking, serve warm or chilled depending on the style. Portion generously; leftovers keep if covered in the fridge. If humidity or a fan oven changes browning, trust visual cues over the last minute of the clock. We write dessert recipes so you can cook from your phone on the bench: large checkable ingredients, numbered steps, and notes you can skim while the pan heats.

Ingredients

Method

  1. Separate eggs while cold; measure 150 ml whites and bring to room temperature.
  2. Heat oven to 170°C (180°C fan to start). Beat whites to soft peaks, then add sugar 1 tbsp at a time. Beat 3 minutes more until thick, glossy and grit-free.
  3. Mix in cornflour and vinegar on low for a few seconds.
  4. Pile onto baking paper on an inverted 24 cm cake-tin base. Shape a 20 cm dome, 4–5 cm high, with slightly sloping sides.
  5. Put in the oven and immediately turn down to 100°C fan (115°C conventional). Bake 1½ hours — no peeking.
  6. Turn oven off; leave pav inside overnight. Top with softly whipped cream and fruit just before serving.

Tip: Measure whites by volume. In hot humid weather keep the pav low and dome-shaped. Do not refrigerate the unfilled meringue.

Notes

  • Putting it together for Pavlova: work clean, taste as you go, and do not rush browning or reduction steps if they appear in the method. If you are cooking for mixed diets, plate sauces and toppings separately where practical. Keep this page bookmarked if it becomes a household regular — we update wording when cooks report a confusing step. Metric consistency across Scoops & Dishes means once you trust the cups and scales here, breakfast through dessert behaves the same way.
  • Shopping and mise en place: read the full ingredient list once before you start. For Pavlova, egg whites and caster sugar are the items that decide whether the dish tastes flat or properly seasoned. Weigh where grams are given — volume cups are fine for liquids and some dry goods, but baking ratios are tighter if you use scales. Australian cups are 250 ml; a tablespoon is 20 ml and a teaspoon is 5 ml.
  • From our tested tip, expanded: Measure whites by volume. In hot humid weather keep the pav low and dome-shaped. Do not refrigerate the unfilled meringue. Treat that as the non-negotiable. If something still feels off — too wet, too pale, too tight — adjust one variable at a time (heat, liquid, or bake time) rather than changing three things at once.
  • Before the heat goes on, line up egg whites, caster sugar and cornflour and anything perishable from the list. Soften butter, bring eggs off the fridge if the method needs them room-temp, and preheat so you are not waiting mid-recipe. For a dessert cook of this size (10–12), a clear bench saves more time than any gadget.