Hello, everyone!

Perhaps you already know that I live in Norway, and May is a very special month for this country. In 1814 on 17th May the Constitution of Norway was signed, and from that time 17th of May is the National Day of Norway. There are different types of parades, starting with kids from kinder garden, and finishing with Russ parade. Kids are allowed to eat as much ice-cream and sausages as they want (no ice-cream limits just on this day). In addition to many different traditions, there is also a traditional food that should be on your table. And of course, when we celebrate an important event, we all like to have a cake on the table.

Many cakes require a lot of time and skills to make them, but Pavlova cake is so easy to make and so delicious that you will want more of it. This cake, I have tried for the first time a few years ago on one of the celebrations of Norwegian National Day with our Norwegian friends. I was impressed how simple and elegant it wast at the same time. Did you know that this cake is healthy? Oh yeah, Pavlova cake is created and named after Russian ballerina – Anna Pavlova. As a ballerina, she couldn’t eat regular desserts because of a diet, but she was allowed to a piece of this meringue-based dessert.

Nowadays, there are many recipes available on the internet. I will share with you one that I found on BBC food blog. When I thought about this blog post in a very beginning, the perfect white Pavlova cake was in my mind. But the result that I have gotten surprised me so much that I wanted to share it with you and have it for myself.

My secret is that due to changes in the cake shape, instead of white Pavlova cake, I made a caramel Pavlova cake. My boyfriend said that it was the best one I have ever made.

So, I call my recipe a caramel Pavlova cake, and here are the ingredients:

1. Egg whites from 4 large or 5 small eggs – 160g
2. Powder sugar (caster sugar) – 250g
3. White vinegar or lemon juice – 1 tsp
4. Cornflour – 1 tsp
5. Vanilla extract – 1 tsp (is optional to make meringue more caramel colour)

Step 1. Beat the egg whites

First, preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius and separate egg whites and egg yolks. Then, for a better control of meringue, we need to let egg whites stay at room temperature at least 15-20 minutes before cooking. Then put them in the bowl perfectly clean (with no water or fat in it) – this is very important because any type of fat or dirt will cause that egg whites cannot be beaten to the hard peaks. Now beat the egg whites with a mixer on high speed until foam is generated (as on the picture below). This means that we can start adding a sugar. Don’t stop the mixer and add 1 tbsp of sugar at a time every 15 seconds. When all sugar is added, now you need to add 1 tsp of cornflour and 1 tsp of white vinegar (lemon juice), and finally vanilla extract (this ingredient is optional and will influence the colour of meringue after baking).

In total, it took me 6 minutes and meringue consistence is shown on the picture.

Step 2. Form a cake

This step is more about your creativity. You can make just one big cake by placing all meringue on the baking sheet and shaping it as a not deep bowl (large versions of my small bowls). I will show you how to make 6 little cakes for one person each.

For this, take a baking sheet, a small bowl, and a pencil. Draw circles on the baking sheet with a distance of 4-5 millimeters because meringue will increase during baking. Then flip baking sheet on the other side and form circle size cakes as it is shown in the picture.

Wait until oven will be preheated to the required temperature.

Step 3. Bake Pavlova cake

If you would like to get caramel Pavlova cake, then follow my recipe. But if you want to get it in white color, you may try to bake it under 105 degrees of Celsius and for 1hour and 15 minutes, then turn off the oven (don’t open it) and let meringue stay in the warm oven for another 3o minutes. Then take it out and let it cool down.

I preheated oven to 150 degrees Celsius and baked the meringue for 1 hour. Then I turned off the oven, and let meringue stay for 30 minutes more in the oven. The last step was to take meringue from the oven, and let it cool down (for example, over the night).

As a topping, you can use whipped cream with fresh seasonal fruits. If you are interested in the recipe for my whipped cream, please let me know in the comments.

Hipp Hipp Hurra!!!