Black Cherry Pavlova

This is the second of my Valentine's Day meringue bakes as part of the Sugar and Crumbs challenge. Once again I used a flavoured icing sugar, this time, Black Cherry. I love cherries. So I thought this would be an easy one to use.
It was very interesting as I didn't love the smell of it, but the beauty of these sugars is the subtle flavours they bring. I added it directly into the meringue to replace the caster sugar and it worked beautifully. The pavlova was topped with whipped cream, fresh cherries, a dark chocolate drizzle and some orange zest. The flavours all worked so nicely together; I did consider making a cherry syrup, but ran out of time.



Whilst my photos aren't great, I hope you can see the heart shape I made my pavlova into. I loved it! The pavlova itself was perfect, crisp on the outside and marshmallowy on the inside.  The fresh cherries complimented the flavoured sugars so well and I would always use fresh with it.


Black Cherry Pavlova
(Pavlova recipe from Raspberri Cupcakes, serves 8)

Ingredients:

• 4 eggwhites, at room temperature
• A pinch of salt
• 240g (about 1 & 1/3 cups) flavoured icing sugar (or caster sugar if making regular pavlova)
• 1 tbsp cornflour
• 1 tsp white vinegar
• 1 vanilla bean, scraped seeds only
• For dusting: melted butter or vegetable oil + extra cornflour
• 300ml double cream
• 100g dark chocolate
• zest of half an orange
• cherries to decorate

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 100°C. Line a large baking tray with baking paper, brush with butter/oil and dust with cornflour.
2. Whisk eggwhites and a pinch of salt in the bowl of an electric mixer until soft peaks form. With motor running, add sugar, a tablespoon at a time, whisking until sugar dissolves (5-10 minutes, you can check it by pinching a small amount of mixture between your fingers). 
3. Fold in cornflour, vinegar and vanilla seeds, then pile mixture into a 20cm-diameter circle (or heart shape) on oven tray, gently smoothing top and making a slight indentation. 
4. Bake in centre of oven until crisp but not coloured (1-1¼ hours). Turn off oven and leave to cool completely with door ajar.
5. Meringue will keep in an airtight container for up to 4 days.

Topping:

1. Whip the cream, adding in a few drops of vanilla essence (optional).
2. Spread it over the pavlova.
3. Melt the dark chocolate in 30 second increments in the microwave until smooth. Drizzle over the cream. Add cherries to the top - whole and halved.
4. Top with orange zest.

This is best assembled just before serving.