Homemade pavlova: in Italy!

This post goes out to my Auntie Heather who was generous enough to furnish me with a copy of a recipe for homemade pavlova, which in turn comes from the mother of my Uncle Mal. Proving that homemade pavlova is a family affair.

It turns out that my Auntie Heather is a very generous cook who shares some of her kitchen secrets with an admiring but ignorant niece. These secrets will not be published in this blog for questions of intellectual property should we ever decide to publish a family cookbook.

One thing my aunt didn’t tell me, though, was what the hell cream of tartar is. An entire Google research project ensued, before I decided that Italians wouldn’t know what it is either, not having the baking tradition we’ve got, that I’d never find it here, and that it wasn’t essential to the recipe anyway (an arrogant assumption but that’s what I do when I find myself stuck; I decided not to substitute with white vinegar, though , a result of a second Google search “cream of tartar substitute”).

In the absence of passion fruit, which again the Italians have discovered only recently but are happy to mention and adopt in cocktails as a sign of being more cultured, I covered our pavlova with seasonal strawberries which this year have been marvellously sweet.

The homemade Aussie pavlova in Italy was a winner, despite it’s contorted shape (my aunt did a much better job in spreading it out over the oven tray than what I did) and I reckon this could be a crowd pleaser in the future as a quiet way of showing a foreign wife can do just as well in the kitchen as the locals. All thanks to the mother of my Uncle Mal and my Aunt Heather ;-)

As an aside, we managed to polish off all the bottles of moscato at our wedding (and we had overcatered!), but if you're looking for a sweet wine match, this is what you want - light, fragrant and fruity. Don't go with anything heavy or with botytris or you'll drown the delicate pavlova flavours.

Photo | Flickr